


You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison

by SkylarEQuinn



Series: ChemVerse [3]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 18:43:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21141419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkylarEQuinn/pseuds/SkylarEQuinn
Summary: ChemVerse. Human AU. After being convicted of a murder that he doesn't remember, Toris Laurinaitis is taken to prison, only to find that his cell mate is a young man his age by the name of Feliks. As the two get to know each other, Toris begins to remember things about the day the murder he was convicted of took place. Now the question is, did he really do it?





	1. Chapter 1

May 24, 2015, Fort Madison, Iowa

As soon as the verdict was read, true or not, Toris Laurinaitis knew he was doomed. He had been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for a crime he never even committed. Toris was going to be in maximum lockup with a cell mate who had the same sentence. The only thing that scared Toris was that his cell mate more than likely owned up to what he did in a courtroom full of people with a satisfied smirk on his face.

The whole ride to the prison, all Toris could think of was the truly brokenhearted look on his mother's face when the verdict was read. Tears had streamed from her pine green eyes as she shook her head in disbelief, not wanting to believe that her son had killed all of those innocent people. She never would have imagined that her only son would ever kill a living being, ever. Her heart had shattered to tiny bits when they found Toris guilty, no matter how much her son pleaded innocent.

"No funny business, Laurinaitis," the officer said, opening the door Toris was seated next to. He grabbed the prisoner's arm and yanked him out of the car, causing Toris to stumble but regain his balance. "Welcome to your new home, you twisted fuck."

Toris winced at the hateful words. "Sir, these cuffs are digging into my flesh. Is there any way you could possibly loosen them?"

"Do you think I give a damn about the comfort of a man who shot up a grocery store?" the officer snarled at him. "Now keep your goddamned mouth shut." He began to lead Toris toward the main building. "You fucking teenagers make me sick."

He wanted to argue that nineteen was technically an adult, but he knew that wasn't going to help his case at all. Instead, Toris kept his mouth shut, wishing he had never been born. If he had never been born, he couldn't have been framed for murder.

.

Toris had been growing his hair out for the past year so he could donate it to charity. He was forced to say goodbye to his goal as the officers at the prison cuffed him to a chair and shaved his flowing, brunet locks from his head. His tears in his eyes had long before dried up, so he couldn't mourn the loss of his hair or his dignity as he was thrown into his cell.

"So you're the poor bastard who shot up your local grocery store, huh?" a voice asked from the top bunk. A boy with long, blond hair and shining green eyes hung his head down into Toris's bunk. "Tough break. You look so stupid with your head shaved, by the way."

Toris curled up in his bunk, hugging his knees tightly to his chest. ""I didn't do it," he grumbled.

"Yeah, and I didn't kill my stepdad and feed him to my family," the boy laughed. "You've entered a whole new world, my friend!"

"Feliks Łukasiewicz?!" Toris gasped out, eyes widening in horror. "You're my cell mate?!"

"I think it's because we're both nineteen, and the only murderers here under forty at the moment," the blond casually answered. "You know, we watched your trial on TV here. You're already a legend."

"I'm telling you, I didn't do it," Toris insisted. "I mean, I was there, but I didn't kill those people."

"Then who did?" Feliks asked. He flipped off of the top bunk and moved to sit on Toris's. "Because until they find the guy who did it, you're my roomie. And since you were the one convicted, they're never going to find him, Toris."

"Please stop," the new prisoner begged. "I can't take this! No more!"

"Yes more!" Feliks insisted. "All the more, Laurinaitis! All of it!"

Toris clamped his hands over his ears. "Stop talking to me like you know me!"

"But I do know you," Feliks answered with a grin. "I know your mind, for we have the same mind. You mind has been tainted with murder, my friend. Once a murderer, always a murderer."

"I'm not a fucking murderer!" Toris shouted at him. His fists were clenched tightly and his teeth were barred. "Now shut the fuck up!"

A wide smile spread across Feliks's face. "Your anger proves me right."

Toris glared over at him. "My anger proves nothing!" he hissed.

"You're pretty sexy when you're feisty," Feliks told him with a wink.

"Fuck off," Toris grumbled, kicking at Feliks. "I'm not in the mood for you right now."

Feliks's eyes widened. "Oh, so maybe you'll be in the mood later?"

"Try never, Łukasiewicz."

.

Early July, 2015, Fort Madison, Iowa

"How did your visit go?" Feliks asked Toris as he walked into their cell. He was sitting on Toris's bunk and shuffling cards, not even caring about his cell mate's personal space. "Who even came to see you? Was it your mom again? Did she cry the whole time like she always does, wondering where she went wrong with you and junk?"

Toris rolled his eyes. "Shut up. If you need to know, it was an old friend of mine. His name is Matthew. He's been worried about me since I was convicted. And guess what. He believes my innocence."

Feliks rolled his eyes and twirled his finger around. "Whoop-dee-doo," he sighed. "You're so obsessed with innocence. It's like a dog with a bone. You're like a virgin or something." He snorted. "Toris the crime virgin!" he cried out before bursting into a fit of cackles. "Seriously, you fucking kill me!"

"When will prison stop being a joke to you?" Toris sighed.

"Try never," Feliks snorted. "The whole legal system is a joke! I murdered my stepdad and fed him to my family, only to end up in paradise!" He laughed gleefully. "I love it here, Toris! People fear and respect you here, and no one really fucks with you! It's great!"

Toris just stared at him blankly for a long moment. "There is something seriously wrong with you."

"Says you," Feliks laughed. He fell back onto Toris's bed, laughing loudly. "I think I'm perfectly normal."

"By what logic do you base that?" Toris walked over to the wink in the corner and splashed water onto his face, using some to flatten his hair, which was starting to grow back. "Because it sure as hell isn't based on any kind of reason whatsoever."

"But isn't that what makes it unique?" the other said.

Toris groaned. "That's not the point, Feliks."

"Nothing is ever the point with you," Feliks grumbled, sitting up and crossing his arms over his chest.

"Because when it comes to you, nothing ever has a point."

"Doesn't mean you have to constantly shit all over my logic," Feliks huffed.

"Don't' get so butthurt over it," Toris scoffed, using a towel to dry his face. "For a murderer, you sure get down about the dumbest things."

Feliks jumped up and ran at Toris, putting him in a headlock before he knew what was going on. "Who's dumb, Toris?" he demanded, laughing loudly.

"Feliks Łukasiewicz!" Toris answered.

The other inmate tightened his hold. "Take it back, Laurinaitis!"

"Never!" Toris laughed.

A guard ran over to their cell. "Łukasiewicz! Laurinaitis! Knock it off in there, will ya?!"

Feliks instantly let go of Toris, who fell to the floor, both laughing like madmen. They loved to freak the guards out like that. It was some of the only entertainment they had in maximum lockup.

"And to think you kids are infamous murderers," the guard grumbled.

The blond inmate suddenly launched himself at the gate to their cell. "Would you like to say that again?" he demanded. "You can't share my stepdad's fate if you do!"

The guard's eyes widened. "Is that a threat?!"

"More of a statement, really."

"Asshole kid," the guard muttered, walking away.

"You're next!" Feliks shouted at him, shaking the bars threateningly.

Toris placed a calming hand on Feliks's shoulder. "Feliks, calm down. He just wanted to get a rise out of you. You can't keep letting him win. All he wants to do is prove himself right. And when you get angry like that, that's exactly what you do."

Feliks pushed Toris's hand off of his shoulder. "Fuck off, Toris. You don't understand."

"Then help me understand," Toris told him.

"You want to know what he did to deserve death?" Feliks asked. His face was uncharacteristically serious; so serious, in fact, that it worried Toris.

"Yes," Toris answered.

"He…" Feliks's voice trailed off as he began to tremble. "He used to…" He shook his head vigorously as he pushed past Toris. "Forget it. I don't want to talk about it anymore." He heaved his slender body onto his bunk and laid on his back, staring up at the ceiling. "Just know that there are bad people in this world, and those bad people deserve to die."

.

Feliks hadn't realized he had fallen asleep until he woke up after lights out. He blinked a few times, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. His entire body felt cold as ice. All he craved was warmth, and he knew only one place to get it. He climbed off of his bunk and bent over Toris's.

"Toris, are you awake?" he whispered, trying to keep his voice quiet so the guards wouldn't hear him. "Toris, please wake up! I need you!"

Feliks felt horrified the moment that last sentence escaped his lips. Never in his life had he ever needed anyone. What made Toris so special? His mind went back to Toris's words that afternoon. "Then help me understand." Did he want Toris to understand? Everything was just so confusing. He felt as if he were going to scream at any moment if he didn't find some form of relief.

"Feliks?" Toris's sleepy voice asked. "What's going on? Do you need something?"

Before Feliks knew what was happening, he fell to his knees and buried his face in Toris's blankets, sobbing. He couldn't understand why he was sobbing, though. Was it all of those repressed feelings from his past, or was it something else? Feliks couldn't tell, so just just kept at it, not even caring what Toris thought of him for crying.

Toris moved to the edge of the bed and rubbed Feliks's back as he cried. He could feel the other boy trembling and shivering beneath his fingers and frowned. His hands snatched his blanket and draped it around his cell mate. "I may not understand what's going on right now, but I can offer what little comfort I know how to give," he softly stated, running his fingers through Feliks's hair like his mother used to do with him.

Feliks's eyes flew open at Toris's words. His sobs began to slow until they were just mere sniffles. He moved to sit with Toris on his bunk. "Could I lay here with you for a little bit?" he timidly asked.

"I don't see why not," Toris answered. He laid back, leaving room for the seemingly broken Feliks next to him. "I'm sorry that you're having a rough night."

The blond sighed, laying back. "It's life."

The next morning, neither boy acted as if the night before had happened. But for the next three nights, Feliks slept in Toris's bunk with him.

.

One Week Later

Feliks approached Toris in the weight room one afternoon in one of his trademark tantrums. "Laurinaitis!" he shouted, storming over to him. "I demand to know why you're so nice to everyone! You're like a sweet, little old lady, and it makes me sick!"

Toris blinked up at him in confusion. "I'm sorry?" he finally said.

"That's all you have to say?!" Feliks demanded, leaning over him. His nose was inches from Toris's. "No one is as nice as you! No one! You are a fucking murderer, now start acting like it!"

The brunet jumped up and tightly grabbed his cell mate's collar in his fists. "What the fuck did you just say?! I didn't fucking kill anyone!"

"Did the devil make you do it?" Feliks taunted. "Because he sure seems to be possessing you right now."

After taking a few deep breaths, Toris let go of Feliks and backed away, heading toward the showers. He needed to calm down. He could not like Feliks get such a rise out of him like that. As he stood under the piping hot water of the shower, his mind began to clear. His bad mood went down the drain with the soap and water.

Feliks was waiting for him outside of the showers. "It was nice seeing you so feisty for the first time since you got here," he commented, following Toris to their cell.

Toris rolled his eyes. "And why is that?" he dared to ask.

"It's like I said before," Feliks began as the guards closed them into their cell. He waited until the guards were gone before turning to Toris. "You're pretty sexy when you're angry." Feliks winked at Toris and climbed onto his bunk.

Toris shook his head, rolling his eyes. "Whatever, Feliks."

Feliks laughed loudly. "My word is law, Toris. You'll figure that out soon enough." He placed his hands behind his head and smiled up at the ceiling. "I've even seen some of the other inmates checking you out."

"Ew," Toris commented, sitting down on his bunk.

"What? You don't like pedos looking at you?" Feliks teased. There was hint in his voice that made Toris highly uncomfortable, but maybe it was supposed to be there or something. Knowing Feliks, it was.

Toris laid down and kicked the mattress above him.

"Okay, I get it," the blond laughed. "So only me then?"

Toris kicked the mattress above him harder.

"Loud and clear, Laurinaitis," Feliks stated with a groan. His back was starting to ache from the kicks to it. "Loud and clear."

.

July 22, 2015, Fort Madison, Iowa

Toris felt something was off all day. Feliks hadn't been acting like his usual self. It was starting to worry his cell mate. The thing that worried Toris the most was that no one else seemed to care. Was there something he was missing about the date? He knew he would have to ask Feliks what was going on, but the question was: how?

Sure enough, after lights out, Feliks climbed off his bunk and asked if he could sleep with Toris. After getting the okay, he crawled in next to him and closed his eyes, dreading the questions he knew were coming.

"Is today the anniversary of anything?" Toris asked him.

Feliks's eyes flicked open. "You mean to tell me you don't know? Everyone else seems to."

"I'm not them, Feliks."

The blond chuckled bitterly. "Right. You're not." He looked over at Toris. "I was convicted and brought here one year ago today. A year ago, I thought that today would be a good day, you know? But after a year of silence from my mom and name calling from my siblings, today is just shit." Feliks let out a deep sigh. "I always thought I would be so much happier without them, but now that they're not with me anymore…"

Toris frowned. "I had no idea you truly felt that way." He rolled over to face his cell mate.

Feliks rolled over to face Toris. He bit his lip. "Yeah," he softly said, nodding. "I do."

Out of impulse, Toris's arms wrapped around Feliks as he pulled him closer. "If they won't be your family, Feliks, I will. We lifers need to stick together."

Before he could stop them, tears spilled down Feliks's cheeks. "Why are you so nice to me, Toris?" he asked. "I killed the man who raised me and fed him to my family!"

"But you also said he was a bad person," Toris answered in a soothing voice. He reached up and smoothed Feliks's hair as the blond buried his face in his shoulder. "He must have done awful things to you, Feliks."

"He did," Feliks whispered. "He did terrible things, unspeakable things."

Toris frowned. "Then I'm glad he's dead."

"You're the only person to ever say that to me," Feliks softly said, pulling away from Toris to look at him. "Thank you. It means a lot."

"You're a victim, Feliks," Toris said. "You only did what you had to."

Feliks sighed. "If only the world saw it how you did." He closed his eyes. "You know, I think I might actually sleep well tonight."

"Here's to good sleep." Toris closed his eyes as well. "Goodnight, Feliks."

But the blond didn't hear him, already too far gone in his dreams.


	2. Chapter 2

Toris sat in a comfy office space, shackles on his hands and feet. He couldn't help but wonder why the prison didn't trust him so much. It wasn't like he really did kill all of those people. His eyes took in the office around him; the pictures and newspaper clippings, all from the shooting in the grocery store. He just wanted to forget that day, pretend that it never happened.

A tall, tanned man walked into the room. He was wearing a mask over his eyes, but Toris didn't seem to mind. The inmate just thought it was some sort of religious preference or something. The man sat down across from Toris at the desk and extended his hand.

"Pleased to meet you, Toris," he said in an accent that Toris couldn't identify off the top of his head. "My name is Sadik Adnan. I will be your psychiatrist from this day out."

"Psychiatrist?" Toris asked. He sighed. It was true that he had seen psychiatrists since he was young, due to bipolar, but he hadn't been on medication for the past three years, being unable to afford it after insurance changes. "That's interesting. I haven't seen one since I was sixteen."

"I read that in your records," Sadik stated, sifting through the paperwork before him. "Something about being unable to afford medication anymore, but you seemed to have been doing well, correct?"

"Yes," the inmate answered with a nod. "I was doing so well, so I don't see why I have to be in prison. I didn't kill those people, I swear!"

Sadik slowly nodded and began to write. "I see."

The prisoner sat there for a few moments in an uncomfortably comfortable silence before finally speaking up once more. "If you don't mind me asking, why do you wear that mask?"

"Does it bother you?" the psychiatrist asked. His eyes had a fun-loving sparkle in them. "It's terribly comfortable, I'm afraid. And another thing is that my patients don't need to know what my face looks like."

"Do you have scars around your eyes or something?"

"Let's talk about you, Toris," Sadik simply stated, looking to his newest patient. "You don't need to know about me." He shuffled through his papers on his desk once more. "Let's talk about why you're here."

"I don't exactly know why I'm here," the young man answered. He shrugged. "I think the warden wants me back on medication again?"

"That is correct," the psychiatrist answered. "But what we need to find out is what will work for you." He opened his laptop and began to log onto it. "What medications have you been on in the past?"

And just like that, Toris's hour and a half session began.

.

"So how was that thing you had to go to?" Feliks asked when Toris got back to their cell. He was hanging upside down on his bunk, peering at his cell mate with wide green eyes. "Did it go well?

"I guess," Toris answered with a shrug. "It was mostly him asking me a shit ton of questions." He rolled his eyes and laid on his bunk.

Feliks flipped off of the top bunk and sat on the edge of his cell mate's. "What kinds of questions were they? Were they the standard 'Why did you do it?' questions or the 'Let's get to know Toris' questions?"

Toris sighed and rolled over to face Feliks. "It was like a mix of both. When he realized that I don't remember doing anything that day, he stopped asking me questions. I think he might realize that I didn't do it, which is good for me. Maybe with a doctor's help, I can get out of here and be able to go home." He couldn't contain the smile that was forming along with his hope of getting out. "That would be great!"

"Yeah, and leave me here all by myself to get a new cell mate who probably sucks," the blond scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest in a pout.

"Well, I'd still drive down from Iowa City to come and visit you," the other replied, trying to comfort his friend. "It wouldn't be too often because I'd probably get a job or restart my schooling when I get back, but I'd still come."

"Thanks for the comfort," Feliks bitterly said, staring at the floor of their cell. He knew it was too good to be true. This happened every time he made a friend. They always left him. Then he remembered that Toris had to be proven innocent before he could get out. "Good luck proving your innocence, though."

"That's the only tricky part," Toris sighed, closing his eyes. "I don't know how I would do that. My mom won't even stick up for me and tell them that I was at home during that because apparently I wasn't."

"What do you mean by apparently?" Feliks asked, eyes widening as he turned to look at his cell mate.

"That whole day is just fuzzy to me. I don't remember any of it. That's why the police thought I did it," the brunet answered. "Doesn't everyone have days that they don't remember?"

"Only if they're on something," Feliks snarkily commented.

"Are you suggesting that I was on drugs?"

"I'm just saying, that's the instance I can think of where someone would forget a whole day like that," the blond quickly said, throwing his hands up in defense as Toris looked over at him with narrowed eyes. "Not saying you were on drugs or anything, but that seems to be the only case where something like that would happen."

Toris sighed. "Then what's up with me?" he asked no one in particular. "Why does it happen to me?"

"Are you diagnosed with anything weird?" Feliks asked him.

"What do you mean by weird?" Toris's eyes grew even more narrow as he propped himself up on his arm. He was growing tired of Feliks's thought process. "First off, that's none of your business. Second, mental illness isn't weird, it's a part of life!"

"I don't have one," Feliks stated. "So how is it a part of life?"

"Forget it, I don't want to talk about this anymore," the brunet stated. "I'm taking a nap. Go to your own bunk."

Feliks rose to his feet. "Fine. I'll leave you alone for now." He climbed onto his bunk and began to twiddle his thumbs. Before too long, he poked his head over the side and addressed his cell mate once more. "Hey, are you sleeping?"

Toris let out a groan. "I'm trying to. What do you want, Feliks? Can't you see I'm not in the mood? Oh, wait. You can't. You suck at reading atmospheres."

"Yes," Feliks sighed. "Continue trying to hurt my feelings. You won't, but please try. I'm a murderer, Toris. You'll have to try harder than that."

The brunet rolled his eyes. "You're such a pain sometimes, Feliks. You know that?"

The other inmate flipped off of the top bunk once more and sat on his cell mate's bunk again. "Indeed I do. I'm the pestiest of the pests. And it is my duty to be so."

Toris sighed and decided to roll over and face the blond, just to see what he wanted. "How long are you going to be? I'm exhausted."

"I just want to keep you awake," Feliks answered with a grin.

Unable to control his rage, Toris picked up his pillow and whacked Feliks with it. "Fuck you, man." He whacked Feliks once more. "Seriously, let me sleep."

With a wicked grin on his face, Feliks commented, "Nice temper, Toris. Are you sure you're not a murderer?"

Fed up, Toris rolled away from Feliks and put his pillow over his head. "Fuck off and get off my bunk," he grumbled. "I'm tired. I want to sleep." He moved his foot and kicked at his cell mate.

"Oh, you get me so hot," the blond teased, getting up. "Sleep well, Tori."

Toris clenched his teeth and let out a growl of rage, yet nonetheless, he quickly fell asleep.

.

A few days later, Feliks wandered over to Toris in the mess hall. It was almost dinnertime, so Toris was waiting at their usual table, impatiently tapping his fingers on it. Feliks walked up behind Toris and put his hands over his eyes, calling out a playful, "Guess who!"

"Your voice gives it away, you know," Toris commented, slapping his cell mate's hands away. "Also, you're the only other inmate here who apparently has the balls to do that, so I knew it was you the whole time."

"Toris, you're a legend," Feliks sighed, taking a seat across from him. "What can I say?"

Toris groaned. "I'm not a scary guy. I don't see why people fear me."

"Legend has it that you shot up a grocery store," the blond casually mentioned.

The other inmate slammed his fist on the table, raising his voice a little. "I didn't do it, okay?!" Taking a moment to calm down, he rested his head on his hand. "I hate being in prison, you know that? It sucks here."

"I don't know," Feliks sighed, smiling. "I actually like it here. It's a lot better than where I came from."

"What the hell? How bad was your home life?" Toris asked, a confused look on his face. "What could possibly be worse than prison?"

The blond's face clouded over. "Believe me," he said, tone serious, "there are things that are worse than this place. I've experienced them. If you don't believe me, that's fine, but just remember that."

Toris, a bit shaken by Feliks's uncharacteristic seriousness, simply nodded and began tapping his fingers on the table again. "I wonder what's for dinner tonight."

"I don't know," Feliks said, back to his usual self. "Probably something disgusting and unidentifiable." He shrugged carelessly and began tapping his fingers as well. "You know, this food is better than the food I was served in high school at least."

"Amen to that!" Toris laughed. "At West High, they had the worst food. I swear it crawled across my plate once! School food is just the worst!"

"Sometimes I'd sneak a sack lunch from home just so I wouldn't have to eat it," Feliks laughed.

Something about that sentence didn't seem right to Toris. Why would Feliks have to sneak food out of his own home? "Why sneak a sack lunch?"

"My step-dad didn't like me eating the food that he bought for the family unless if we all ate it together," Feliks answered. "It was pretty rough." He chuckled to himself. "But I don't have to worry about him anymore. I'll never have to go hungry again because of him." His blond hair swished as he flicked it behind his shoulder. "No one will. My family should be looking to me as a hero, not a monster. I saved all of them." His smile faded. "Why can't they see that?"

"They're just being ungrateful right now," Toris assured. "I'm sure one day they'll come to see the light."

"I sure hope so," Feliks sighed. "It gets lonely with no one to write to and no one to visit me."

"I can see what I can do on my end," Toris offered. "My friend Alena writes to me and asks about you a lot. I can see if she'll write to you?"

Feliks's eyes widened. "You'd do that for me? Even though she doesn't know me? Even though you know that I willingly murdered someone?"

His cell mate nodded. "Of course I would. No one deserves to be all alone, no matter what they did."

"Tori, you're the best!" Feliks nearly shouted, leaping across the table and hugging his cell mate. "How could I ever repay you?"

"By letting go of me and not making such a big scene over something so small," Toris groaned, trying to pry the blond off of him. "Now get off!"

Feliks let go after a few moments. "Fine, fine, I'll leave you alone." He smirked at his friend. "So tell me more about Alena. Is she pretty? Do you like her? Does she have a nice body? Have you slept with her before? Is she good in bed?"

Toris gripped at his head. "Just shut up, Feliks, or I'll take it back."

The blond sighed and mimed zipping his lips shut. He then sat at the table and twiddled his thumbs until they heard the announcement for dinner. Feliks then jumped up and ran to get in line along with Toris.

.

Later that night, Feliks laid on Toris's bunk with him as they stared up at his own bunk. He let out a sigh as he thought of the fact that prison really was his home now. He would never be allowed around his family again. There was no chance of them ever making up. It was just so depressing that he could just never get out of bed again. The only thing getting him out of bed those days was Toris, if he was being honest. But he would never tell his cell mate that.

"Feliks, why do you sigh all the time?" Toris asked him. "Is something wrong?"

The blond thought it over. Should he share what he was really thinking with Toris? He let out one more sigh and decided to go for it. "Okay," he finally said after a few moments. "I've been thinking about my family a lot lately."

"What about them?" Toris asked. "Do you miss them, Feliks?"

Feliks held his breath for a moment before answering, eyes pricked with tears. "I do. I mean, I don't miss my step-dad, but I miss my mom and siblings. My mom was my rock when I was growing up, yet I could never talk to her about my step-dad and the things he would do to me." He frowned. "And my siblings and I were really close in age, so we were all close. I don't know why I was my step-dad's only victim. I don't know what it was about me. Maybe because I was the only one who wasn't his actual child? Whatever it was, he hated me."

"What would he do to you, Feliks?" the brunet asked his friend. His eyes held worry and concern as he looked over at the blond.

Feliks attempted to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat. "I-I just can't tell you," he said after a few moments of silence. "It was too horrible, and I don't want to remember it right now. Maybe once I'm stronger, I will be able to tell you."

"Take your time," Toris answered. "With our life-sentences, I assure you that we have all the time in the world."

His cell mate sighed. "That we do." Feliks felt a tear escape his eye, but luckily it was the one that wasn't facing Toris. "It just fucking sucks is all…" He didn't know how much long he could hold the burden of his secrets. He didn't even mention them in court when he was committed. At that time, he just wanted to be away from his family. "I wish I could see my family one last time, you know?"

"I understand," Toris softly said. He reached over and grabbed Feliks's hand, squeezing it comfortingly. "If you need a family, we'll be family, me and you. We won't need anyone else."

Feliks felt his heart skip a beat. "You would do that?"

"Of course I would," Toris answered with a chuckle. "I mean, we're this close already. Why not just be family?"

"I like the way you think, Toris." Feliks sighed out happily. "This could work." Yet deep down, he felt that there were feelings that were more than familial forming for Toris. And that was dangerous water to be treading.

Toris stretched a bit, his shirt riding up in the front and revealing his toned, muscular torso. He didn't even bother to pull his shirt back down after his stretch because he didn't notice Feliks staring and mentally realizing that's why Toris worked out so much. His eyes then went to his cell mate. "Is everything okay?"

"What if you had a secret that you could never tell another living being, no matter how close you were?" Feliks slowly asked. "Because the secret would just make things awkward."

"What are you talking about, Feliks?" Toris asked, propping himself up and looking down at his cell mate. "You're starting to worry me, you know that?"

Feliks groaned. "Everything always has to be so fucking complicated, doesn't it?" he snapped. "Everything, all the time! It's not fair! Everything is so fucked! We're all fucked!"

"I'm afraid I don't exactly follow," Toris told him. Growing even more concerned for Feliks, he moved closer to him, flustering the blond even more.

"Stop right there," he said. "I see what you're doing, and it's sly and not very nice!" Feliks frowned up at Toris. "Why do you care about me anyway? I'm nothing. I'm no one. Why do I even matter? I could disappear one day, and it would never make a difference."

"It would make a difference to me," Toris said. "You're my best friend here. We do everything together. We have since I've gotten here."

Feliks could feel his heart swelling with emotions that he didn't want to feel. "Stop it, Toris," he softly said. "I can't feel this right now. It's not okay for me to."

"Can't feel what?" Toris asked him, confused. "I don't understand what you're saying. What's going on, Feliks? Talk to me."

The blond took a deep breath. "There are some things I can talk about, and there are some things that I can't. This is one of the things that I can't talk about. I'm sorry, Toris, but that's just the way it is…" He closed his eyes and leaned his head back on his cell mate's pillow.

"But why can't you talk about it?" he asked. "Does it involve me?" Toris cocked his head to the side. "I don't understand. We talk about everything together. Do you not trust me?"

"That's not it," Feliks sighed. "It's just complicated?"

"But it doesn't have to be," Toris told him.

"What could make it less complicated then?" Feliks asked his cell mate. "Because in my head, there are a lot of things wrong with my situation currently."

"Feliks, we are always together, so why not let me help you? It would be nice." Toris laid down next to his cell mate. "If you can't say it, then express to me what's on your mind in another way."

Before he could even think about it, Feliks rolled over on top of Toris so their stomachs were pressed against each other's and kissed him, long and good, on the mouth. Without another word, he then got up and climbed onto his bunk, leaving Toris alone with his thoughts for the rest of the night.


	3. Chapter 3

The next couple days were a little awkward between the two. Toris was always thinking about that kiss, and Feliks didn't really say anything, trying to act like it had never happened. Personally, Feliks couldn't believe that he had even gotten up the courage to kiss Toris, but then again his cellmate was someone who was easily approachable, so why not? The only result of it was that his heart would speed up every time he was around Toris, and he would get so flustered that he wouldn't be able to speak. Even other prisoners were noticing, yet no one dared to comment on it, knowing what the two young men were capable of.

Toris was trying to think of things to say to Feliks, but he just couldn't think of anything at all. How could he after he had just kissed him like that? Even so, they still spent all their time together in silence. At night, the two would even lay on their bunks in awkward silence, which was so unusual for them, but neither could help it.

Feliks finally broke the silence three days after kissing Toris. "I'm sorry," he softly said as they laid in their bunks one night. "I didn't mean to make things like this between us. I was just trying to express how I felt that night."

"But you did it in such a strange way," Toris commented, at least relieved that they were talking again. "Why would you do something like that?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Feliks shot back. "And what was so strange about it anyway? I couldn't help myself. You're always so nice to me. How could I not want to know what kissing you is like?" He tugged at his blond locks in frustration. "God, Toris, are you stupid or something?"

The brunet sighed. "Have you ever thought that maybe I don't feel that way about you?" he asked him. "Or any other men for that matter?"

Feliks was quiet for a few moments. "I had never thought of that," he admitted. "Men here usually don't seem to care. What makes you so much more different than them?"

"Let's just keep it like this," Toris offered. "I'm straight. I've always been straight. There is no way in hell that I would ever fall for you, Feliks. Sorry, but that's just the way it is."

"You think that now," Feliks commented, swinging down from his bunk and onto the other boy's. "But what if I ever so happen to change your mind?"

"And just how would you do that?" the brunet asked his cellmate with an amused smirk. "You don't control my thoughts or anything that goes on in my head."

"Oh yeah?" the blond challenged. "Well I can make sure that I never leave it."

"Try it," Toris challenged. "I dare you." He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Feliks. "You can never turn me because I have strong willpower in my mind. I know what I want, and what I want is a woman. You can never change that."

"I can make you want me and only me," Feliks assured. "Just give me the chance, and I'll prove it to you."

"And if I don't?" Toris asked.

"You'll spend your whole life sentence wondering what you missed out on."

The brunet scoffed. "Oh, please," he sighed. "There is no way that I, a male, would ever desire you, another male."

Feliks had finally had enough and went back up to his bunk, intimidated by Toris's words. He had to think of a way to make Toris love him. There had to be a way to make that happen. After all, since a young age, Feliks had always gotten what he wanted. Why should this time be any different?

"You'll see," Feliks threatened down to Toris.

Toris hummed noncommittally. "I'm sure that I will, Feliks."

The blond clenched his fists, frustrated. "Why do you always do shit like that?" he demanded. "I'm being serious here!"

"And so am I," his cellmate answered. "Give it your all, Feliks. I'll be waiting."

And with that, Feliks threw his blanket over himself and forced himself into a deep slumber, too irritated with Toris to even think.

.

The next morning, Feliks woke up earlier than usual due to excessive nightmares. He couldn't stop dreaming about his family. Why did they have to disown him like that? Didn't they realize he needed them? How else was he supposed to survive this life sentence without killing himself?

He peeked over the edge of his bunk to see that Toris was still asleep. More than anything, Feliks wanted to go down to his cellmate's bunk and lay with him, but he wasn't sure if Toris would appreciate that after the night before. Instead, Feliks curled up into fetal position, waiting for him to wake up.

About a half hour later, Toris began to stir in his sleep. He opened one eye to see Feliks peering down at him. "Well this is a pleasant way to wake up," he sarcastically commented, grinning. "How long have you been watching me, Feliks?"

Feliks scoffed. "Whatever. I was just looking to see if you were awake, just as you were waking up."

"I see," Toris answered with a noncommittal hum. "So what do you want to do today?" he asked, as if forgetting the awkwardness of the past few days. "I have a meeting with Dr. Adnan today at one, but other than that, I'm free." He yawned and stretched. "My medicine seems to be working well, at least. I haven't been flying off the handle as much."

"That's good," his cellmate replied, twisting his blond locks around his finger. He always quickly grew bored of any conversation involving Dr. Adnan. It were almost as if Toris were obsessed with his medication sometimes, whereas Feliks really couldn't care less what they shoved down his throat. "How about we lift some weights today? I'll spot you first."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Toris agreed. He smiled to himself. "If we keep lifting at the rate we're going, within a year, we'll be the strongest guys here," he laughed. "Isn't that just a thought?"

Feliks laughed with him. "Yeah, that would be something!" He grinned widely. "We would look like those douchebags that go to the gym every day just to show off their muscles!"

Toris laughed harder. "We would!"

The blond smiled to himself. It was moments like these where he was glad he was sent to prison, so he could have met Toris. There was no way they would have ever met otherwise. And he was glad they had met this way. It kind of made things easier because there were no secrets between them at the start. Toris knew that Feliks hated his step-father due to the fact that Feliks killed him. But yet Feliks felt there were some missing pieces with Toris. Could Toris really have killed all of those people?

.

Three Years Previous

"Toris, where are you going?" Justina Laurinaitis asked her son as she saw him walking toward the front door. "It's almost midnight. You know you're on probation for that last temper blowout you had."

Her son turned to her with hatred in his eyes. "Then why don't you just call up my fucking parole officer?!" he demanded. "You're good at that anyway!"

Though his words stung, Justina wouldn't let it show that they had any effect on her. "What happened to the nice boy you used to be, Toris? I miss him."

"Yeah?" Toris demanded. "Well he grew up, Mom! He was tired of being pushed around by society and you!" He pointed a finger at his mother. "One of these days he'll have his revenge on everyone!"

"I hope you don't mean that," his mother replied. She set her knitting in the basket next to her chair and stood up. "Toris, why don't we go talk about this in the kitchen, and I'll make you some food?" she suggested, walking over to him.

He shoved her down onto the floor. "I don't want to talk about anything!" he roared. "I just want out of this house! House arrest over the summer sucks, Mom! And it sucks that I can only leave the house when you want to, because you never want to!"

Justina looked up at her son in shock. "Toris, I try to provide the best life that I can for you," she simply said. "Why isn't that good enough for you?"

"Because it's not a good enough life at all," Toris huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and looking away from her.

"But that's not a reason to be violent toward me," she softly answered. "Have you been taking your medicine at all?"

"Why should I take it?!" Toris demanded. "It's not like I go out in public anyway!"

"Toris, please start taking it again, and I promise I'll take you out in public more," Justina said.

"That's what you said last time, and you didn't!"

"I am a single mother, Toris Laurinaitis! Give me credit for at least being able to feed you and take care of you in other ways!" she shouted at him. "But if you start taking your medicine again, then a week from today I'll take you to the mall, and then we'll eat at any restaurant of your choice."

"Why a week?" Toris asked.

"That's how long it takes for the medicine to kick in," Justina answered. "And it's up to you to take your medicine. I'm not going to be reminding you. But I will be keeping track of how many pills have been consumed."

Toris groaned loudly. "This is a real pain."

"Do you want to go or not?" his mother asked.

With another loud groan, Toris stormed off to his room, not even bothering to help her up off of the floor. And though Justina loved her son, she was wondering how much more of this she could take. Because she knew that once Toris started his medicine, he wouldn't remember any of this.

.

Late August, 2015, Fort Madison, Iowa

Dr. Adnan sat across from Toris at his desk and smiled at him. "I'm glad you're here today, Toris, but we're going to be talking about some hard things."

"What kind of hard things?" he asked. "I don't understand what you mean by that. I've never really been through anything that hard except this."

"Today we're going to talk about those times that you've assaulted your mother," Dr. Adnan answered, folding his hands carefully on the table.

"She's lying!" Toris quickly interjected. "I would never lay a hand on my mother! I would kill someone if they laid a hand on her! You have to believe me!"

"You see, you're bipolar, Toris," Dr. Adnan answered. "Some bipolar people go into fits of rage that they don't really remember afterwards. It's like they are subconsciously doing things. And that's what I'm thinking you were doing when you assaulted her."

Toris blinked back tears. "You have to believe me, Dr. Adnan! I would never hurt my mother!"

"Consciously," Dr. Adnan answered. "That is why I believe that you were subconsciously doing it. But it would be hard to prove."

The inmate looked down into his lap. "Why didn't she ever say anything to me?" he asked. "If only she had said something about this, I would have been better prepared for this day….Now I just feel like shit."

"And why do you feel that way?" Dr. Adnan asked, folding his hands under his chin and resting his head on them.

"Because I love her," Toris answered. "I would never want any harm to come to my mother. Ever." He folded his hands in his lap and looked down at them. "My mother means the world to me because she's all that I have at home."

"I see," Dr. Adnan answered. "Then maybe we should work more on looking into things you subconsciously do."

"I didn't kill those people, if that's what you're trying to get at," Toris stated. "Even I wouldn't ever go that far." He stood up. "I'm sorry, Dr. Adnan, but I'm done here today. You've given me a lot to think about, and I thank you for that. I'll see you again in two weeks." And with that, he left the small office to meet the guard who was waiting for him.

"I see you're unwilling to accept the actions you've subconsciously made," Dr. Adnan stated, making notes on his paper. "Interesting, Toris. Very interesting."

.

"What's got your panties in a bunch?" Feliks asked when Toris joined him at the weight benches after his meeting. "You seem so uptight. Did the doctor say something you didn't like or something? Talk to me, Toris."

"He accused me of being abusive to my mother," Toris grumbled. "And I've never laid a hand on her. It was complete bullshit, and he knows it." He crossed his arms over his chest and huffed to himself, grumbling. "I can't believe his nerve. I've never laid a hand on my mother…"

"Yeah, I heard you the first time," Feliks commented to him. He rolled his eyes, thinking Toris was being a bit overdramatic. "So do you want to lift or what?"

Toris groaned at his cellmate. "You could at least try to be a bit sympathetic, you know."

"I'm sorry?" Feliks asked. "Is that better?"

The brunet groaned. "That's the best I'm going to get from you, isn't it?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Feliks said, lying down on the weight bench. "Now spot me, Laurinaitis."

Toris rolled his eyes but moved to do as requested. "You can be a real pain at times, you know that?"

"Yeah, I do," Feliks carelessly answered. "But by looking at my face right now, do you think I give a damn?" He pointed to his face before grabbing the barbell. "That's what I thought, Toris. This boy don't give a damn, whatsoever. At least your mother didn't disown you for what you did. At least she comes to see you."

"I guess you're right," Toris sighed.

Feliks cackled for a moment. "You guess?" he asked. "All I get are letters from your friend Alena. Which I really do appreciate and love very much. But I wish someone would come and see me every once in awhile, you know?"

"You mean to tell me no one would ever come see you if you asked?" Toris asked. "Not even a priest of anything of that sort?"

"Look, if I wanted to be preached at the whole time, I would just invite you," Feliks replied with a smirk, dodging Toris's swipe at him. "You're lucky I didn't lift the weight yet, you know. Or else that would have been real danger."

"Yeah, whatever. Just shut up and lift already," Toris instructed.

.

"Feliks, you have a phone call," a guard said, walking over to Toris and Feliks's cell. "Would you like to receive it?"

The blond looked up from his rummy game with Toris, surprised. "Would I ever!" he excitedly said. "I don't even care who it is! I finally have a phone call!" He jumped up and ran over to the gate. "I'll be back, Toris! No cheating, you bastard! Or cheat! At this moment, I really don't give a damn! I actually have a phone call!"

Toris smiled to himself as he watching Feliks walk down the hallway toward the phone booths. He was happy to see Feliks so excited. And he knew who the phone call was from, because he had personally arranged it himself.

Feliks picked up the phone he was instructed to answer. "Hello? This is Feliks speaking."

"Feliks?" a female's voice asked from the other side. "Hi! This is Alena, your penpal! I'm just calling to see how you're doing! I figured that I would call because I wanted to put a voice to the letters."

"That is so kind of you!" Feliks enthused, beaming. "You are such a kind and caring young woman, Alena! I greatly appreciate you calling me! It really does mean a lot!"

"I'm glad to hear that!" Alena cheerfully said. "My friend Jiri said that it wouldn't mean a damn thing, but I knew you were different! I knew you would appreciate a phone call from me!"

"Yeah, don't listen to Jiri at all," Feliks laughed. "I haven't had a phone call since before I was sent here. That was over a year ago!"

"Oh, you poor dear!" Alena exclaimed. "I'll be sure to call more often!"

"You will?" the blond excitedly asked. "That's so kind of you! You're awesome, Alena!"

"Awe, thank you!" Alena giggled. "You're pretty awesome yourself! I enjoy receiving letters from you, Feliks! I get so excited whenever I get mail!"

"So I'm not the only one?" Feliks asked. "That's good!" He couldn't stop smiling. He was having the time of his life talking on the phone, something he hadn't done in over a year. "I hope we can talk like this more often!"

"I am sure that we will!" Alena assured.

And they spent the rest of Feliks's ten minutes on the phone getting to know each other a little better. When it came time to hang up, Feliks almost cried, not wanting to. It didn't seem fair that so much joy could be taken away so quickly. But Alena promised to call him back in a few days, and that made things so much better for him, so he was able to hang up with no problems.

"I see what you did there," Feliks told Toris when he got back to their cell. "And I thank you greatly for it."

"What did I do?" Toris asked, pretending to be confused.

"You set up that phone call, didn't you?" Feliks smirked at Toris.

"What phone call?" his cellmate asked. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Who called you?"

"It was Alena!" Feliks enthused.

"Dude, Alena doesn't even call me," Toris told him. "You're one lucky guy." He winked at Feliks, and smiled widely seeing how happy the blond looked. "I'm happy for you, though."

Feliks smiled widely. "Tonight is the best night of my life!" he enthused. "And it's all thanks to her! But don't tell her I said that. That would be embarrassing."

"Of course," Toris said with a nod. But he was already making a mental note to tell Alena how much that phone call really meant. To both of them.


	4. Chapter 4

About a week had passed since Feliks's phone call from Alena, and he was still overjoyed about it. By the point, she had called him twice and he had also received a letter from her. Nothing could have made him happier.

Although Toris was happy about it, he couldn't help but feel a little sad that he wasn't Feliks's main person anymore. Alena had worked her way into Feliks's heart, and Feliks was always talking about her. What he couldn't figure out was why he was so jealous. It wasn't like it really mattered anyway. Feliks could be friends with whoever he wanted, so why was he so jealous of Alena?

"Feliks, you really seem to like Alena a lot," Toris commented one day. "While I admit she's great and really sweet, you seem to be obsessed with her." He scratched at his head. "I know it's none of my business, but you're not in love with her, are you?"

The blond was quiet for a moment. "What makes you think that?" he asked. "Of course I'm not in love with her. I don't even know her." He laughed. "Why would you think that I am? Do I talk about her too much? I can stop, you know."

Toris immediately felt bad for bringing it up. "No, it's not that. You can keep talking about her if you'd like."

"Does it bother you when I do?" Feliks asked. "If it does, I can stop. I just want to make sure you're comfortable." He blushed. "I mean, she was your friend first, so you already know everything I have to say. It probably gets tiring to have to listen to me talk about things you already know."

The brunet sighed. "It's not that," he said.

"Are you jealous of her?" Feliks's green eyes went wide. "That's it, isn't it? You're jealous of Alena because you think I like her!"

"Whatever," Toris huffed. "That's stupid."

Feliks laughed. "Whatever you say, Toris. It's just that it's written all over your face is all."

"Shut up," he grumbled at his cell mate. "What would you know anyway?"

"Why are you jealous of her?" the blond asked. "I'm just curious about that part of it. You have no reason to be."

"I don't know!" he blurted out. "I just am! Okay?!" Toris leaned heavily against the wall he had been standing near. "I don't know why I'm jealous. Jealousy has always been a foreign concept to me. I've never understood it before, yet I don't know why I feel it so strongly now." He sighed. "Yes, I am jealous, Feliks. I'm jealous, and I have no idea why."

Feliks smiled. "You wouldn't happen to be falling for me, would you, Toris?"

"Impossible!" Toris snapped at him. "Get real, Feliks! It's got to be something else!"

"Yeah?" Feliks asked. "Like what, your majesty? You're in love with me, but you just don't realize it yet."

"I could never fall in love with another guy," the brunet scoffed. "That's just insane. I'm not gay, Feliks, and I never will be either. You can't turn me."

"You're gayer than you think, buddy-boy," Feliks laughed. "Just wait for it. It'll hit you, and it'll hit you hard. Right in your big, Lithuanian face. And you'll see that I was right all along."

Toris scoffed once more. "We'll see about that."

.

Toris sat across the table from his mother, shackles on his wrists and ankles, as she visited him. He was embarrassed that he had to be chained up like some monster, just to see his mother in the flesh, but rules were rules. So many stupid fucking rules.

"How are you feeling today, dear?" Justina asked her son, smiling at him. "You seem to be adapting well here, from what I've heard. That's good. How's your cell mate doing? Feliks, right?"

Her son was amazed at how well she remembered Feliks's name. When he had first told her, she had told him she didn't even want to know anything about prison or how life was there. Now she was just there asking about everything. It made Toris feel comfortable, yet uncomfortable at the same time. What had made her more accepting of his situation.

"He's doing well," Toris answered. "Feliks wanted me to tell you hi." He smiled back at his mother. "My meetings with Dr. Adnan have been going well. My new meds are incredible. I wake up in such a great mood every morning! It's great!"

"That's wonderful to hear, dear," Justina answered. She was practically beaming with joy. Was she hiding something from him? Did she know something that Toris didn't know?

"What has you so happy today, Mom?" he asked, hoping she'd tell him. Not knowing was starting to eat at him. "You seem to be a lot happier this time than you have been the past few times you've visited. I mean, the other times, you've sobbed the whole time."

"I've accepted your fate," she softly said. "I know that I can't change what happened, but I will accept the fact that you are here now, and not back in Iowa City with the rest of us. Your friends send their love." She pointed to the pieces of paper on the table. There were so many of them. "We all really miss you, Toris."

"I know," he softly said. "Do you still believe that I didn't do it?"

"I don't know what I believe, if I'm honest," Justina replied. "You could've done it, you know."

"How?" Toris demanded, slamming his fist on the table. He was starting to get angry just be hearing something so absurd. "There is no way I would ever kill another human being! It's impossible!"

"See how quickly your anger flared up right there?" she asked.

"My anger has nothing to do with it, Mom!" he yelled at her. "I would never kill someone! How could you say something like that to me?!"

"Toris, please stop yelling," she softly said to him, looking down into her lap.

"No!" Toris shouted at her. "This isn't fair! You waltz right in here, all happy and shit, pretending that everything is okay, and then accuse me of murder?! What the fuck is wrong with you?! How could you do something like that to your only child?!"

"Because I don't know what to believe anymore!" his mother replied, raising her voice back at him. "You were there that day, Toris! They had you on the security cameras!"

"I keep telling you, I wasn't there!" he shouted. "Who are you going to believe?! If you're going to keep accusing me, I'm just going to go back to my cell! In fact, I'll just go do that! Have a nice day! And don't even bother visiting anymore!" He turned to face the doorway where the guards were waiting for him, face flushed with anger.

"You don't mean that, Toris," she softly told him.

"Yeah?" he asked. "Well tough shit, Mom. Maybe I do." He walked over to the door. "I'm done here," he told the guards. "You can show her out." Though he heard her softly sniffling behind him, he didn't even turn around to say goodbye.

.

"Shut up!" Feliks said, appalled. "There is no way your mom accused you of murder today!"

"She did!" Toris huffed, pushing the barbell above him. "I thought she would always be on my side, but it looks like that's not true." He let out a slow breath of hot air as he brought the barbell back onto the rack. "I'm so done with all of this. For real. Maybe it's best that I came here to prison. It's nice here. It's peaceful here. No one fucks with presumed murderers."

"True that," Feliks laughed, tossing Toris a towel.

"From now on, it's just you and me, Feliks," Toris sighed. "We don't need anyone else. No more fake people in our lives."

Feliks's heart sped up, but he pretended that he didn't notice it. "Just us?" he asked. "What's with the sudden decision?"

"You've never lied to me or been fake toward me," Toris replied. "You've always been straight up to me since day one. I really appreciate that in a person."

The blond smiled. "Yeah, no problem at all. I'm glad that I can be here for you. No one else is ever here for me, so I'm glad you are."

"And I always will be," Toris vowed.

.

July 10, 2014, Pella, Iowa

Feliks was breathing heavily, having ran away as fast as he could. He needed to silence his breaths, or he would be found. That would be bad. He didn't want Stuart to find him. That would only mean more pain for him. This was not good. It was not good at all.

Heavy footsteps resounded around the house as Stuart looked for his stepson. And with the closer the footfalls got, the more nervous Feliks became. After all, this had been going on for years, but no one had ever done anything or believed Feliks when he tried to tell them. Everyone said he was just making it up and that Stuart would never do such things to his own child. That was right, he wouldn't to his child. But Feliks wasn't his biological child. Feliks didn't even have the same last name as the rest of his family because he refused to let Stuart adopt him.

"Found you," Stuart said, opening the door to the closet that Feliks was hiding in. He picked the young adult up and threw him over his shoulder. "You're coming with me."

"Please! Put me down! I'll do anything!" Feliks begged. He really didn't want to spend any more "quality time" with his stepfather. "Just please put me down!" Tears streamed down his face as he was carried into the bedroom and thrown onto the bed. "Please! Don't touch me!"

"Feliks, you lost that right when you ran from me," Stuart told him, a menacing smile on his face. "You should know better by now." He flipped Feliks onto his stomach and began messing with his pants.

The boy struggled against him, but it was all over too late. He was left in pain and feeling hopeless and ashamed of himself. The same as he always did when this happened. As he cried on the bed, he thought of ways to get back at Stuart, but he could only think of one.

As Stuart sat in the living room, Feliks shouted up in the bathroom about something, luring him up there. And when Stuart entered, it was quick and clean, one bullet to the head.

Feliks fell to the floor, relieved. His hands were shaking as he dropped the gun. His ears were ringing from the sound in such a small, enclosed space. But he was sure the abuse was going to end there. Now, what to do with the body?

.

Early September, 2015, Fort Madison, Iowa

Feliks's eyes flew open as he woke in the middle of the night from the memory. He found himself on his bunk above Toris's. He wasn't in his home back in Pella. He was here. He was safe. He was an inmate.

His eyes filled up with tears at the horrible memory that had come to him in his sleep. He tugged at his hair, wondering why the word had to be such a cruel place. "It's not fair," he kept whispering to himself. "It's just not fair."

"Feliks?" he heard Toris ask from his bunk. "Are you okay?" Though Toris sounded half-asleep, his concern seemed genuine. "Do you need to talk?"

"You're sleeping, Toris," Feliks sighed.

"Am not," he softly said. "Now come down here and talk to me. You're crying. I know that much. Now, what are you crying about?"

Feliks got off of the top bunk and went down to Toris's bunk, lying next to him. Though Toris's eyes were closed, he could tell that his cell mate was at least somewhat awake. "I dreamed about my stepdad again," he softly said.

"What about him?" Toris asked, opening his eyes and rolling over to face Feliks.

"I dreamed of the things he used to do to me," Feliks softly said, averting his eyes from Toris's. He rolled over so his back was facing the brunet. "Those terrible, unspeakable thing. And then I dreamed of the day that I killed him…"

"Feliks…" Toris softly said. Not knowing what else to do, he hugged Feliks from behind, spooning him in the process. "I'm so sorry that you're going through that right now. That must be terrible to remember something so awful…"

"It really is," Feliks tearfully replied. "It's not fair that I'm stuck with the memories of what he did to me while that bastard is resting peacefully in the ground. I hope he's in hell. I hope the bastard is burning in hell!"

The brunet comfortingly shushed his roommate. "It's okay, Feliks," he softly said. "He'll never touch you again. He'll never do those things to you again." Though he didn't know what those things were, he could only imagine that they were horrific. "Never."

"Toris?" Feliks quietly said.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I love you," Feliks said, turning to him. "I really do. I have for awhile now. You are always here for me, and there is no way I couldn't have fallen for you."

"I understand," Toris softly said, feeling oddly proud at Feliks's words. He took pride in knowing that Feliks loved him.

"Now if only you could just love me back."

Toris was quiet for a moment. "If I kissed you, would you feel better?" he quietly asked.

Feliks was stunned for a moment. Did Toris really just say that? "If you what?"

"If I kissed you," Toris started again, "would you feel better?"

"I...I don't know," Feliks honestly answered. "But I guess it's worth a try." He rolled back over to find Toris gazing at him. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Why wouldn't I? I'm about to kiss you, aren't I?" Toris asked. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Feliks's, imagining the busty, blonde neighbor girl from his time in Iowa City, Amelia Jones.

Feliks kissed him back, but he sensed something off about it. "What are you imagining right now?" he asked Toris. "Because I can tell that you're not thinking of me right now. Kiss me like you're thinking of me."

Toris took a deep breath and then kissed Feliks again, imagining his loud-mouthed cell mate. He imagined Feliks in the mornings when his hair was messy before he brushed it. He imagined Feliks when he had just had a shower and his hair was still dripping wet with water. Something about those things seemed oddly sexy to Toris. He put and hand on Feliks's waist and pulled him closer.

Feliks was surprised by Toris's sudden turn-around, but welcomed it. He placed his hands on Toris's broad shoulders and accepted the kiss as Toris deepened it. There was honestly nothing he wanted more than that. He wanted Toris to love and protect him. Was that too much to ask for?

When they were done kissing, Feliks leaned his head against Toris's chest, listening to his friend's rapid heart rate. "What are you thinking about?" he softly asked. "Your heart is racing."

"I'm thinking about what to do next," Toris softly said.

"What to do next about what?"

"I'm so confused, Feliks," he answered. "I don't know what to think about anything anymore. Everything is all backwards and strange."

"How?" Feliks asked him.

"For starters, my mother now thinks I really did kill all of those people," Toris began. "She was the person who was always supposed to be on my side, no matter what. And then I also have these weird feelings forming for you, and I don't know what they are exactly. Everything is just so weird, and I have no one to talk about it to."

"You can always talk to me," Feliks answered.

"Maybe," Toris sighed. "But right now, I'm not sure what to do."

"What do you mean?" the blond asked. He wanted to get inside of Toris's head and be able to stay there. He wanted Toris to fall in love with him.

"I'm having so many conflicting feelings about so many things, but right now I don't know what to do," the brunet answered.

"What do you want to do right at this moment?" Feliks asked.

"Kiss you."

"Then do it," Feliks answered before kissing him again, passionately. He wanted Toris to feel his love and know that he was always going to be there for him. After all, if they didn't have each other, they didn't have anything.

.

Toris woke up the next morning with Feliks cuddled close to him. He didn't exactly know what to think, but he liked it for the most part. He wanted Feliks close to him. Did that make him gay? Did that mean he liked men? He was so confused and couldn't wait to talk with Dr. Adnan again to try and sort things out. After all, those things remained confidential.

He looked to Feliks and smiled, glad to have someone like him to sleep next to. His arm snaked it's way across his cell mate's torso as the blond's chest fell up and down as he slept. Toris couldn't remember a time when Feliks had looked so peaceful.

Feliks began to stir in his sleep and his eyes fluttered open. "Toris?" he asked, looking over at him. "Was last night just a dream? Or was it really real?"

"What part of it?"

"The part where we made out almost all night," Feliks whispered. "Was that just me, or did it really happen?"

Toris then kissed Feliks, softly at first, and then a little more passionately. As he pulled away, he smiled. "Well, what do you think?"

And for the first time in over a year, Feliks finally remembered what love felt like.


	5. Chapter 5

For the next week, Toris battled the stirring thoughts in his mind regarding Feliks. He didn't understand the feelings he felt for his cell mate, nor did he want to without a professional's help. But it was finally time for his appointment with Dr. Adnan, and he anxiously fidgeted in his chair in the waiting room, handcuffs clasped firmly on his wrists and shackles holding his feet together.

Toris sighed as he looked up at the ceiling. What exactly were his feelings on Feliks? On one hand, Feliks was a guy and Toris knew that he himself wasn't gay. But on the other hand, there was nothing he enjoyed more than kissing his cell mate, which seemed a bit off to his seemingly-straight self. He just wanted to know what was going on in his head. Was he really in love with Feliks, or was it just a way of releasing sexual frustration? Some things he thought maybe he was just better off not knowing.

Dr. Adnan opened the door to his office and smiled at the young man waiting for him. "Come on in, Toris," he greeted. "I heard you have a lot to talk about today."

Toris sighed and blew his bangs out of his eyes, standing up. "That's for damn sure," he responded. He shuffled over to the door, chains clanking the entire way. With ever clank, there was a sigh from the inmate, for he was reminded that he was not a free man anymore.

Once in the small office, he sat heavily in one of the chairs, causing it to creak in defiance. "I have so much going on in my head that I can barely think straight anymore." Realizing that he had kinda-sorta made a pun with that, he frowned in distaste. Toris was never really one for puns. "I seriously think there is something wrong with my head, Dr. Adnan. There's always a hot blond on my mind, but it's not the same one as before!"

"A hot blonde you say?" Dr. Adnan asked, leaning toward Toris with interest from behind his desk. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

"Okay, so when I was living in Iowa City with my mom, we had this neighbor girl, right? Her name was Amelia Jones, and she was everything my ideal woman had become. She was cute, funny, strong, and had a rockin' body, let me tell ya." Toris smiled at the memory of the time Amelia washed her car in a bikini one summer. "Anyway, she was blonde, right? But now she's been replaced by another blond in my mind, which I don't think is all that fair."

"And why don't you think that's fair?" Dr. Adnan asked him, folding his hands under his chin.

"Because the blond is a guy!" the inmate blurted out. "He's my cell mate! I can't get the stupid fucker out of my mind, and it's bugging me!"

"What got him there in the first place?"

This was when Toris decided to play dumb instead of give away what Feliks and he had been up to lately. "I honestly have no idea, but I'm kind of bothered by it. Isn't there some kind of medication that can take away gay thoughts?"

Dr. Adnan chuckled to himself, putting a finger under his mask to wipe away the tears that had formed in his eyes. "Toris, I don't see what's wrong with you thinking about him in this way. You spend about 90% of your time with him as is. Something like this was bound to happen. Now, the question is, what do you plan on doing with these thoughts of Feliks?"

Toris shrugged. "I honestly have no idea," he admitted. "I'm scared of these thoughts because I have always considered myself completely straight." He gulped. "But now I'm not so sure anymore. I always thoughts I knew who I was and what I wanted in life, but now I'm constantly doubting myself about everything. Why is this happening to me?"

"It's because you're young, Toris. You're at that age where you don't know exactly what you want yet, but you still have high hopes and expectations of yourself. Maybe they're a little too high, Toris. Why don't you experiment things with yourself? See what you like and what you don't like, even with Feliks, as long as you have his consent."

"You really mean that?" Toris asked, eyes widening. He looked at his psychiatrist with an amused expression made of both shock and awe. "Are you sure that's an okay thing to do in this situation?"

"As long as you get consent from Feliks, I don't think there would be anything wrong with exploring yourself with him," Dr. Adnan repeated with a shrug. "Why not try something new? You never know what you like until you try it first."

The inmate stared at his psychiatrist for a few moments before feeling his lips spread into a smile. "Then I'll try that out and let you know how it goes."

.

"So Dr. Adnan said what?" Feliks asked, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall of their cell, amused. A broad smile graced his face as he threw his head back in laughter. "Are you going to follow the doctor's orders?" He winked a green eye at Toris. "I mean, I know I'm hard to resist, but I didn't think the doctor would tell you to explore yourself with me."

Toris blushed and looked away from him. "See? This is why I didn't want to tell you." He scoffed and flipped his bangs out of his eyes. "You always make sexual jokes out of everything, Feliks. That's why I can't have a serious conversation with you."

Feliks walked up to Toris until they were inches apart. "So what are you going to do after your visit to the doctor?" he asked, placing his hands firmly on his cell mate's hips. "Are you going to listen to him, or are you going to ignore his advice and keep your internal passion to yourself?"

The brunet scoffed. "You're really enjoying this, aren't you?" he asked, looking Feliks in the eyes. He then winked at his cell mate. "It's for me to know, and you to find out along the way," he simply stated with an impish smirk.

His cell mate took his hands back, crossing his arms over his body in a pout. "Well you're no fun, Laurinaitis, are you?"

"I never said I was," Toris stated before he walked over to his bunk and sat on it. His eyes studied Feliks as he watched him pace back and forth next to the wall. "What's bothering you now?"

The blond turned to him. "What makes you think you can just mess with me like this?" he demanded, fists clenched at his sides. "I have been nothing but honest with you, regarding these sorts of things, but then you turn everything I say into a joke. What makes you think that's an okay thing to do, Toris?"

Toris shrugged to himself. "Guess I'm just a dick then."

"You are!" Feliks yelled, pointing at him. "You're nothing but a dick!" He stormed across the cell to Toris and stood before him, fuming, hands on his hips. "You're taking advantage of my feelings, and I don't like it!"

The brunet chuckled and grabbed Feliks, pulling him down onto his lap. "What makes me such a dick?" he asked, stubble tickling Feliks's cheek.

Feliks's face was bright red, but he wasn't about to back down from this. "This! This right here! What the fuck is this?" he demanded. He tried to squirm his way off of Toris's lap, but his cell mate's grip on him was just too tight. "What are you even trying to do, Toris? You're stupid!"

"Am I?" Toris asked in a husky voice.

The sudden voice change of his cell mate shut Feliks right up. He felt goosebumps suddenly crawl across his flesh as he tried to ignore the arousing chill that went down his spine. What was going on?

"Isn't it like you told me before?" Toris muttered into Feliks's ear.

"What do you mean?" Feliks quietly asked, turning his head slightly toward Toris.

"You're pretty sexy when you're feisty."

"Goddammit," Feliks whispered before tackling Toris onto his bunk and kissing him fiercely.

.

Toris woke up the next morning with Feliks snuggled up next to him. He smiled softly to himself as he pulled his blanket up over his cell mate's shoulders. They had been up all night talking about what they really meant to each other, though Toris was still unsure of Feliks. Then again, at least he wasn't lonely. With his arms resting behind his head, Toris stared up at Feliks's unused bunk above them and smiled. He could already tell that it was going to be a good day.

Feliks stirred slightly in his sleep and moved closer to Toris. His hands roamed blindly around until they rested on his cell mate and he calmed down. The blond's breathing returned to normal as his chest rhythmically rose and fell. A feeling of peace surrounded both men as they laid there, one asleep and the other wide awake.

There was a special sort of peacefulness that enveloped them. Toris appreciated it. It wasn't often that they got peaceful mornings such as these. The sun hadn't risen yet, so the other inmates probably weren't even awake by that time. In Toris's mind, it was just the two of them who existed. That was all who needed to exist in that moment. Just him and Feliks.

Oh, how he wished his cellmate would just wake up and look at him with his big, green eyes. He loved the way Feliks's eyes always seemed to sparkle with an almost childlike wonder whenever he gazed upon the man he adored. Toris felt pretty lucky to know that he was that man. His fingers traveled their way down Feliks's arm before lacing their way between the blond's.

Feliks's eyes slowly fluttered open as he felt his gaze drift slowly toward the man next to him. His lips pulled into a satisfied smile as he gently squeezed Toris's hand. In his mind, there was no better way to wake up than this. He snuggled closer to Toris, taking in everything about the man that he loved.

"What are you doing?" the brunet laughed as Feliks buried his face deep within the man's chest. His smile reached all the way to his own green eyes, making them light up as the first rays of the morning sunshine crept in through their barred window. He laughed a little harder as Feliks looped his arms around Toris's torso and squeezed firmly.

"You're mine, Toris Laurinaitis," Feliks declared. "I have no intentions of sharing you with anyone." He pulled down the collar of Toris's t-shirt and licked the brunet's collarbone. "Feel that? I have officially branded you as mine, and there is nothing you can do about it."

"What ever shall I do about this, Feliks Łukasiewicz?" Toris asked, his voice nearly a hum. He made a confused face at the blond. "But why did you lick me, of all things?"

"My brands are unique," the other stated, sticking out his lower lip in a pout. "If you don't like it, get used to it. You're stuck with me from now on, Laurinaitis." He was quiet for a moment as he pondered what he wanted to say. "I've always wondered what sort of nationality your last name was. I mean, it's obvious that mine is Polish due to the spelling, but what is yours?"

"Lithuanian," Toris answered with a smile. After a moment, his smile turned to a smirk. "I guess that explains why I am both smarter and taller than you."

Feliks stuck his tongue out at his cellmate. "Oh, blow me, Toris."

"Why would I do that when you haven't even blown me?" the brunet challenged. He watched as Feliks's face turned bright red. His smirk then turned wicked. "I mean, you're just over here, demanding things of me, when you haven't even done them yourself."

Toris's cellmate buried his head in the blankets, pushing himself away and nearly falling off the edge of the bunk. "I-I-I didn't demand anything of you, honest!" he stammered. Feliks was so flustered that he could barely speak. Why would Toris say something like that? The blond's mind was filled with thoughts of what Toris could have meant.

The other man laughed softly. "I was joking, Feliks. It's not a dick, don't take it so hard." He pulled the blankets away from Feliks's face to see that it was bright red. "Are you really that embarrassed over a joke?"

"Jokes are meant to be funny," Feliks huffed at him. He puffed up his cheeks, pouting. "That wasn't funny, sir."

Toris cupped Feliks's cheeks in his hands and squished his face together, making all of the air rush out of the blond's mouth. "You know, you're kinda cute when you're flustered." He smiled a little as he saw his cellmate's eyes light up.

"I am?" Feliks breathed. He quickly looked away and cleared his throat before saying, "Well, I mean, of course I am. We gays don't spend all our time in the damn closet for nothing."

"So you really are gay?" The brunet's eyes widened. "How long have you known that you are?"

It was then that Feliks realized what kind of can of worms he had just opened with his snide joke. "I guess I've always known. I've never had a crush on a girl, but when I was growing up, especially after puberty, I saw other guys in a new light. Something about them just seemed so fascinating. I desired to kiss one, and once I finally did, I guess that was when I knew?" He could feel himself becoming flushed at the memories. "I don't know. It's kinda hard to explain. How did you know you were straight?"

"To be honest, I never knew if I was or not until after I hit puberty," Toris honestly answered. "There was this girl who lived next door to me named Amelia Jones. One day, when I was fourteen, she was outside washing her convertible in a really skimpy bikini, and I wanted nothing more than to see what she looked like without it." He thought for a moment. "But even if I knew what she looked like without it while all wet and sudsy, I don't think I would have wanted to make a move. I guess it's more that I'm intrigued by the female body, you know? But that doesn't seem to make sense, if I'm being honest with myself. I've never thought about doing sexual things with a girl, I just like how they look naked."

"I mean, I will admit that boobs look really fun," the blond muttered in agreement.

"I know, right?" his cellmate laughed. "But then there's you. I feel an attraction to you, if I'm being completely honest with both you and myself. Yet even though there is an attraction, I can't tell what kind of attraction it is."

"Can you try to put it into words?"

"Like how? That's the part where I get confused." Toris ran his fingers through his bangs in frustration. "What am I supposed to say?"

"Tell me the kinds of things you want to do with me." Feliks looked at him with kind eyes. "I can help you figure all of this out, you know."

Toris took a deep breath before beginning. "I really like kissing you. It's one of my favorite things to do these days. But when I kiss you, I get this urge to hold you closer and closer until neither of us can even breathe. And then once it gets to that point, I want us to stay that close until the end of time." He closed his eyes and groaned. "God, I sound so fucking stupid."

"You don't sound stupid," Feliks told him, smiling. "You sound confused about yourself. May I help you with your exploration?"

"How?"

The blond put a hand on Toris's chest and slowly slid it down to his waist where the top of his jumpsuit was tied to make it look like pants. "Does my hand being right here bother you?" he asked.

Toris thought for a moment. "No," he answered. He was feeling a warm, tingling sensation in the pit of his stomach, but what did it mean? His blood was beginning to rush through his body, yet he couldn't understand why he was getting so aroused.

Feliks slid his hand into the jumpsuit yet kept it over his boxers. He discreetly smiled as he felt Toris begin to grow under his touch. To his surprise, Toris hadn't told him to move his hand yet, so he was going to see how far he could go with this. His fingers blindly searched for the opening in Toris's boxers.

The brunet closed his eyes as pleasure coursed through him. He couldn't believe how gentle yet arousing Feliks's hand could be. Yet even though he was experiencing so much pleasure, he knew one thing. He refused to moan. There was no way he was ready for Feliks to hear something like that escape his lips. That would be way too embarrassing for him.

When Feliks's hand hit Toris's throbbing flesh, even he blushed. He didn't expect his cellmate to be so big. Yet it excited him at the same time. A sharp gasp escaped his lips and he watched Toris open his eyes and give him a hazy look.

"What is it?" Toris asked him. "Is something wrong?"

Feliks immediately took his hand back, embarrassed that he had done that. "Nothing," he quickly said. He quickly snuggled back into Toris's embrace. "How did that make you feel, Tor?"

"If I'm being honest, it was pretty exciting to me," he answered. "I wouldn't have minded if you had continued." Toris was quiet for a moment. "What made you gasp and stop? Is everything okay? Did I do something to offend you?"

"Not at all," Feliks answered in a dreamy voice. "It's just that I couldn't let myself continue at that moment. Some things could have happened. Things that you aren't prepared for. I had to make myself stop. No need to worry." He was quiet for a moment before softly saying, "Trust me, you'll make someone extremely happy one day."

Toris blushed. He didn't know how to respond to that, not knowing what Feliks meant by any of that except for the last part. His thoughts were racing through his mind at a mile a minute. What could he say? How could he respond? Was there even a proper way to respond to that? He decided to settle for the only thing he could manage at that moment.

In one swift movement, he pulled Feliks on top of him and kissed him with all of the pent up passion he was feeling. All he wanted was for Feliks to feel the same way he did at that moment and this was the only way he knew how. As soon as he felt Feliks kissing him back, he knew that he had chosen the proper method of response.

.

Later that day as Toris spotted Feliks while he lifted weights, he couldn't help but let his eyes wander to Feliks's groin. Since Feliks now had an idea of how big Toris was, he couldn't help but wonder how big the blond was. He made excuses as to why in his mind. Some of the excuses were things like thinking it was common nature to wonder. Then again, who was he fooling. There was no way he could deny his gay thoughts any longer.

"Hey, help me with this weight, Toris," Feliks groaned, cringing. His arms were shaking. "Why are you spacing out when you're supposed to be spotting me?"

"Shit, sorry," Toris said, quickly jumping in to help his cellmate. Had his gay thoughts really distracted him from helping Feliks when it really counted.

"What the hell are you thinking about?" Feliks asked, sitting up on the weight bench. "What was so important that you couldn't help me lift the barbell?"

The brunet blushed furiously as he looked away. "N-Nothing," he quickly said. "I just…." He couldn't come up with anything, so he just kept his silence and hoped that Feliks would just accept it.

That wasn't the case. "No, what's on your mind?" his cellmate asked. "It's obviously something. Why won't you tell me? You usually tell me literally everything. What gives? Do you not trust me or something? Odds are I've thought about much worse." He chuckled to himself. "I mean, I've fucking killed someone, chopped him into pieces, and fed him to my family. There is no way you have crazier ideas than me."

"I was thinking about this morning," Toris quickly said.

Feliks laughed. "Why didn't you just say so? What happened this morning is enough to distract anyone. What part of this morning are you thinking of?"

"Well, you kinda have an idea of how big I am," the brunet muttered. "And here I am, having not even a hint as to your size."

"Does that really matter?" Feliks asked with a smile. He wiped his forehead and the back of his neck with a towel before looking back at Toris. "You really want to know how big I am?" His smile widened. "I'm six and a half inches. There. Happy?" He cocked his head to the side as Toris began chuckling to himself. "What is it now?"

"I'm smarter than you," Toris began. "I'm taller than you." His mouth stretched into a wide smirk as he prepared for the punch he knew he was going to receive. "And I'm bigger than you."


	6. Chapter 6

Mid-September, 2015, Fort Madison, Iowa

"You know what's something I have yet to understand," Toris said to Feliks as he sat next to him during breakfast. There was something odd about the location of the prison that had been irritating him since day one.

"Lay it on me," Feliks responded, taking a bite of his toast. He looked over at his cellmate with curious eyes.

The brunet cleared his throat. "I still have yet to understand why there is a goddamned putt-putt golf course right next to the friggin' prison," he bitterly said. "And it's also an ice cream shop! It just irritates me that certain freedoms are literally just out of our reach." He raked his hand through his hair and sighed. "Did they do that to torture us or something?"

"Holy fuck, you're right!" Feliks exclaimed, wide-eyed. He slammed his toast down on his tray. "Who do those bastards think they are, building a damned golf course right next to our fucking prison?!"

Toris smiled to himself, seeing how easy it was to get Feliks all riled up in the morning. It honestly lifted his spirits to see the blond so passionately angry about the things he himself was angry about. He took a sip of his coffee, a contently smug smile on his face, as he watched Feliks continue to rant and rave.

Though it was true that Toris had grown quite accustomed to the prison life, he did miss his freedom and his friends in Iowa City. He hated that it had all been taken away from him because of a stupid misunderstanding, but what could he do? At this moment in time, it was probably just best to go with the flow of prison life until he could think up some sort of evidence to prove his innocence.

Feliks's voice suddenly snapped the brunet's brain back to reality. "So, Laurinaitis, what kind of havoc shall we cause today?" he asked. "I've honestly been thinking about causing trouble in the weight room." A satisfied smirk rested on his face as he thought more into it. "I was thinking we could add extra weight to the barbells when the lifters aren't looking."

Toris spit out the water he had been drinking. "Holy shit! Do you have any chill?" He got out a napkin and wiped up his mess. "That sounds dangerous! Someone could get hurt!"

The blond's face formed a deadpan expression. "Toris Laurinaitis, need I remind you that we're both here on murder charges?" he groaned. "Who cares if someone gets hurt? We're fucking murderers! Do they expect any less of us?"

Having finally become used to being labeled as that, Toris no longer reacted to being called a murderer. Yet he sighed at Feliks's reasoning. "What if we were to actually prove the guards wrong and actually behaved ourselves for once?" he suggested. "I'm sure some of them would immediately drop dead from shock."

Feliks groaned loudly and leaned heavily against his cell mate. "Why are you such a fucking pussy?"

Toris didn't respond. He could feel his head getting fuzzy.

.

Southeast Junior High School, 2008

Vladimir Lupei sneered at Toris from across the hallway, catching the eighth grader's attention. "Well if it isn't Laurinaitis," he snarled from where he stood. He began to follow after Toris as the boy walked to the lunch room. "You going off to sit with you little boyfriend and girlfriend?"

Toris took a seat next to his best friend at the time, Alfred Jones. Across from them was Alfred's twin sister, Amelia, who was trying to coax Alfred into eating, but to no avail. He did his best to ignore Vladimir, even when he sat down on the other side of him.

"Could you please try to convince this skin-sack of bones to eat?" Amelia pleaded, looking to Toris. "If he doesn't, he'll have to go back to the University again." She frowned. "Come on, Alfie," she begged her brother, "just eat something!"

The blond boy simply pushed his lunch tray over at Toris while looking his sister dead in the eye. "Here, you can have it," he murmured to the brunet.

"I swear to God, Alfred!" Amelia shouted, reaching across the table and grabbing her brother by the collar. "You need to eat, you useless sack of bones!"

"If you look close enough to your left, you can see Amelia's boobs are about to pop out of the top of her tanktop," Vladimir coaxed Toris. "You'll finally lose your visual virginity."

"Amelia is not some object to look at," Toris growled at the boy to his right. "She's a human being." He could feel his anger stirring inside of him. Things would be bad if he were to explode in front of his friends. "Now leave me alone."

"So you refuse to look at boobs?" Vladimir laughed, leaning heavily on Toris. "Damn, Laurinaitis! Why are you such a fucking pussy?"

The brunet boy seemed to have lost every last bit of patience within himself while losing control of his body at the same time. "What the fuck did you just call me?!" he shouted out, shoving the boy off of him. His hand went for the nearest object, coincidentally the lunch tray. He picked it up with lightning speed, all of its contents flying off in different directions, before smacking Vladimir upside the head with it and letting go of it, allowing it to fly across the cafeteria and into a wall.

"Wanna try calling me that again?!" He didn't even listen to the other boy's pleas for mercy as he grabbed him by his hair and slammed his face into the table. With all of the adrenaline flooding his veins, he easily lifted the boy from his seat and threw him at the nearest wall before getting up himself and storming over to his victim, who was now scrambling to get up and run away.

Toris allowed the boy to rise to his feet before grabbing him by his neck and pinning him to the wall, cutting off his air supply. His hand pulled back, ready to punch the other boy's face in, until he realized what he was doing, snapping out of his violent mindset immediately. What had happened to him?

He slowly released his victim as the teachers pulled him back from the boy, a look of horror on his face when he realized what he had done. Tears pricked his eyes as he attempted to cry out, "I didn't mean it!" Yet his voice was nowhere to be found.

.

Mid-September, 2015, Fort Madison, Iowa

As the fuzzy feeling left his head, Toris realized that he was now on his feet. As his gaze focused, he gasped upon seeing Feliks clawing furiously at his hand, which had him pinned to the wall by his neck. Feliks's face was slowly starting to turn purple from lack of oxygen. He then felt strong hands of the guards prying him off of the blond inmate.

"No!" Toris shouted, finally finding his voice after watching Feliks collapse into the arms of another guard. He struggled against the guard, trying to get to his cellmate. "No! Let go of me! Please!" he begged.

"Why, so you can finish him off?" the guard holding him snarled. "Forget about it. You're going straight to the warden." He turned Toris toward the door, leading him out of the dining hall. "Fucking murderers trying to kill their fellow inmates," he grumbled. "If it were up to me, I'd put your asses on Death Row."

"I-I don't know what happened!" the brunet cried out in panic. "I didn't mean to!" He felt as if he were going to be sick. There was no way he would ever hurt Feliks! Not in a million years! "Please tell me he's going to be okay! I need to know that he'll be okay!"

"Shut it, Laurinaitis," his guard snapped at him. "You really are more twisted than I thought you were. Trying to kill a man, just to make sure he'd be okay once you failed." He shook his head in disgust. "I don't understand how the fuck your mind works, nor do I want to. As far as I'm concerned, you're the sickest of all the men here."

Toris wanted to interject about the pedophiles being more sick and twisted than he was but then decided that he should probably keep that to himself and just let the guard go on his pointless rant. After all, he knew he was going to get it worse if he tried to argue. Though keeping silent about things of that nature was hard, the brunet knew it needed to be done, or else he would never be able to see Feliks again.

One Hour Later

"Mr. Laurinaitis, do you now understand the severity of your actions?" Vash Zwingli, the warden, asked Toris. "You could have killed your cell mate, and then we would have to put you in the hole. Do you want to go to the hole?" His green eyes narrowed as he watched the cowering, young inmate shake his head. "Yeah, I didn't think so," he scoffed. "Since I am a nice man, I will let you off with a warning this time. If you have another one of your freak psychotic episodes, you're going straight to the psych department. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly," Toris softly answered. "I-It won't happen again, sir."

Zwingli crossed his arms over his chest, fixing a hard glare at Toris. "I'd like to think not," he huffed. "Now get out of my office."

Toris was more than willing to obey. Besides, he needed to go and check on Feliks and explain himself. His heart pounded as he was led to his cell, yet it seemed to pick up in pace when he saw Feliks in the cell. And as the cell door opened, Feliks looked up at his cell mate with a hurt expression, and the brunet no longer wanted to go inside.

A strong hand pushed Toris into his cell and shut the door behind him with a loud clang, causing the brunet to nearly jump out of his skin.

Feliks was the first to test the waters. "So do you got anything to say, or…?"

"I have no excuse for my actions," the brunet miserably answered. "What I did can't be overlooked by a mere excuse." He focused his green eyes on the floor, unable to meet the pair of eyes that seemed lazer focused on him. "You know, maybe I really do belong here."

"Maybe or maybe not," Feliks answered with a shrug. "Do you have some kind of excuse for it? If so, tell me. I would like to know why I was suddenly choked out in the mess hall."

"They called it a bipolar blackout," Toris stated, playing with his bangs so he wouldn't have to look at the blond before him. "It's like one second I was sitting with you, and then the next I was back in middle school, dealing with a bully. It was so weird."

"How the hell did you get sent back to high school in mid-conversation?"

The brunet groaned and rubbed the back of his head. "Something must've triggered that memory, though I have no idea what it could've been."

Before Feliks could ask anything more, the door to their cell opened. A guard stepped in, his gaze shooting over to the blond. "Łukasiewicz, there is a phone call for you."

"We'll continue this conversation when I get back," Feliks said before going with the guard. "Better find what words you're going to use."

Toris let out a sigh as he sat on his bunk. How on earth was he going to be able to explain what he had done when he didn't even know what triggered it? He felt like a lost cause as he tugged at his hair, trying to think. Yet every time he tried to remember what had caused it all, the only image he saw in his mind was the fallen Feliks. Pressing his fists against his eyes, he thought back to the beginning of the flashback, but he still couldn't remember the trigger. At a loss, he let out a groan and threw himself backwards onto his bunk to sleep off his frustration until his cellmate came back.

.

Feliks picked up the receiver and sat back in his chair. "Feliks speaking," he told the person on the other end. He was hoping it was one of Toris's friends calling, and not some overly religious woman to tell him that he needed to repent for his actions. If it were the latter, he just might snap and tell her his views on religion, which is that religion is like genitals, not to be shoved down someone's throat.

"Hey, buddy!" Alena's cheery voice called to him from the other end. "It's been awhile since I've called you, and I apologize for that. What matters is that we're talking now, right? How have things been? Are you and Toris still getting along well?"

It was as if Alena had sensed something had happened. Feliks would've smacked his forehead into a wall in frustration if he had been near one. He settled, instead, for a good, old-fashioned facepalm.

"It's like you have a sixth sense, Len," he sighed. "Would it be alright if I asked you a few questions about a certain brunet inmate that we both know?"

"What kind of questions?" she quickly asked. "What has he done?"

"Is our buddy Toris known for having random, violent outbursts?" he finally asked, realizing how difficult of a question it really was to ask.

Alena sounded uncomfortable as she answered. "It's not that he's known for them, per se. It's more like they happen once in a blue moon, so it really scares people, but he's back to his usual sweetheart self within minutes. He makes it so hard to stay afraid of him." She paused for a moment. "I once mustered up the courage in myself to ask him about what he experiences during those quick moments of rage. He claimed not to remember what he does. It's obvious that he's not completely conscious when those sorts of things go on, but at the same time, we all know it's still him. I once viewed it as him being possessed by this violent and angry Toris that none of us had ever met before, you know?"

"Please forgive me, but I need to ask you a personal question," the inmate told his conversation partner. "Has he ever gotten violent with you?"

"Certainly not," she calmly answered.

"Have you ever been around him to experience one of his fits of rage? Like, have you ever been around while he seemed possessed?"

"N-No, never." Alena's voice wavered with her answer. "Toris is a good person!"

Feliks began to sense her discomfort, but he began to sense something else as well. Something about her wavering voice told him that she had, in fact, seen Toris in that state before. "I never said he wasn't," he told the girl on the other end. "I'm just asking questions to understand him better."

"It's no use, Feliks," she sadly told him. "If you want answers, you might as well ask him yourself. Though I and many others that I know are considered his friends, none of us truly understand him. Think of him as a complicated jigsaw puzzle, if you will." She took a deep breath. "Every person in his life has at least a piece or two of that puzzle, yet even when we all come together to put the pieces where they go, we still don't get the finished product. Either someone is hiding extra pieces they may have, or Toris has them, whether he knows he does or not. Though a wonderful man, our beloved Toris will always remain a mystery to us." Alena sighed. "Feliks, I doubt there will ever be a single person in existence who will ever completely understand him. Don't get your hopes up by thinking you'll be the one who finally does."

It was only at that moment, when Feliks felt the harsh reality of Alena's words hit him like a slap to the face, that he realized that he probably would never understand Toris. Just the thought of never being able to understand Toris completely turned his insides to ice. How could he just give up on his cellmate like that? Even though his goal seemed unreachable, he knew he had to keep trying for it, because he knew Toris needed at least one person to understand him. And since they were cellmates who were both given life sentences, who would be a better fit to understand him than Feliks?

"I won't get my hopes up about it, Len," he informed the woman on the phone. "But I'm still going to try my best. It's the least I could do for him."

"Look, Feliks, I'm not going to stop you, but just please keep in mind that Toris's mind is a dark and dangerous place," Alena warned. Her words almost seemed to be dripping with worry and concern.

"Who better to make the sacrifice to know his mind than the person he'll be stuck with for the rest of his life?"

Alena left out a sharp gasp, making it seem as if someone had slapped her. "Feliks, please be more gentle with your wording. Accepting the fact that he has to spend the rest of his life in a prison cell has been extremely hard on all of us who love him back home." She sniffled. "None of us want to believe that he did it."

"But do you believe that he murdered all of those innocent people?" Feliks calmly asked.

The woman on the other line sniffled. "None of us know the truth for sure. We just want to believe in the fact that Toris wouldn't do something like that, yet with his history of blackouts when he was younger, none of us will ever know."

"Until he's proven innocent, I'm going to believe it."

She sighed. "Though you claim that you want to understand him, why are you thinking against our beloved Toris?"

"Everyone has their flaws, Len," he simply replied. "But that doesn't decrease their worth in the eyes of everyone. So what if he did kill all of those people? Does that make him less worthy of the love and support that he needs from his loved ones?" Feliks paused, waiting to see if she would interject. "That's what I thought."

"You love him, don't you?" Alena asked after a moment of silence. "You really do love him to the point where you will risk yourself for him."

"I've loved him from the start," Feliks admitted. "There is nothing I won't risk to make sure he's happy, Alena." He took a deep breath. "Toris means more to me than myself. Ever since I arrived here in Fort Madison, I never thought I would ever have a chance at love. But when Toris showed up here, he proved me wrong. I love him so much that it hurts. There are so many new things to discover about him with each passing day. I'll never get sick of discovering the new sides to him, because the more I discover him, the deeper in love I fall."

"Then I hope your love for Toris knows where it's guiding you, Feliks. I want you to understand him as best as you can. If your love for him is as deep as you claim, then maybe you might have more of a chance than the rest of us to understand him," Alena softly told him. "I just hope that Toris can one-day love you back."

The blond inmate smiled to himself. Little did she know… "You never really know, do you?" he thought aloud. "It may never happen, or may even happen sooner than one would think."

"What are you trying to imply?" she asked.

"Nothing," Feliks replied, a hint of laughter sprinkled into his reply. "Why speak of such things before they happen, right?" A smile stretched across his lips for the first time since his phone call had begun. "All you need to know is that Toris will always be in good hands with me."

"Thank you, Feliks," she softly told him, a smile in her voice. "Unfortunately, like all good things, our call must come to an end. Keep your chin up, and your eyes on your goal, okay? I'll definitely work to be in contact with you more often. Take care of Toris!"

After bidding his goodbyes to Alena with a promise to speak again soon, Feliks allowed the guard to walk him back to the cell he shared with Toris. There was a slight bounce in his step as his playful attitude returned to him. Suddenly, to him, it didn't matter what Toris had done that morning. Rather, Feliks was excited to get back to his cell to see Toris.

.

Toris sat up the moment the cell door opened. His eyes widened upon seeing Feliks prance in, looking as if he were in the greatest mood he had ever felt. "Hey, uh, so I've been thinking of what to say," he began.

Feliks simply skipped over to Toris's bunk and sat next to him. A wide smile broke out on his face as he looked over at the brunet. "Save it for another time," he laughed. "We have more important things to do."

"Like what?" the brunet asked.

"I thought you'd never ask!" And with that, Feliks crashed his lips against Toris's, erasing all doubt that he was still angry with him.

And just like that, for the first time that day, Toris felt the warmth that he needed to move on past what had occured just hours before.


	7. Chapter 7

Late Summer, 2009, Iowa City, Iowa

Toris watched from the side of the shared driveway as his neighbor, Alfred Jones, performed yet another ollie on his skateboard. He yawned in boredom. "Your so-called 'skills' suck. Can't you do something else?" Though he knew his words would get his neighbor riled up, he didn't exactly care at the moment. His boredom overpowered his ability to filter his words.

"You think you're so good at skateboarding, Toris?" Alfred snarled at him, coming to a sudden stop. "How about you do some tricks?" He stepped off of the skateboard and kicked it at Toris with one swift, frustrated movement. "I bet you can't! Don't talk shit if you can't even do the bare minimum!"

With a grin, Toris sent the skateboard rolling back to its owner. "Wow, Alfred, you're so easy to tease. You fall for words every time." His light-hearted grin quickly filled with mockery. "You're such an idiot, you know that? You always let everything get to you."

The blond boy puffed up his chest, trying to seem intimidating while at the same time pretending that his friend's words had no effect on him. "That's because I won't let people's words influence who I am," he finally decided to say after thinking on it for a while.

"Idiot," Toris sighed. "It took you too long to come up with that excuse. You had enough time to calm down as your tiny brain thought of something 'cool' and 'inspirational' to say." He scoffed. "I'm going inside. You're boring." He turned to leave but was instantly stopped by Alfred's retort.

"I'm pretty sure you're bored because no one puts up with your shit like I do," the blond dared to say. "I never really see you hanging out with anyone at school. Everyone is scared of you, and you know it." Though Alfred saw Toris clenching his fists, he couldn't stop himself. It was to the point where he felt as if he were just vomiting up the insults. "No one ever knows what to do when you lose your temper, and you can see that everyone is terrified. You turn into a psycho and do scary shit! And then after you do it, you pretend that you don't remember what happened! That's why I'm your only friend!"

Toris whirled around at nearly the speed of light and stormed over to the other boy. There was a look of rage in his eyes that Alfred had never seen before. The enraged gaze told Alfred all that he needed to know about the situation. He had to get out of there, and fast.

Tripping over his feet and skinning his knees on the driveway, Alfred attempted to get away. He managed to get back on his feet, but Toris already had him cornered. This is the end, he thought to himself as he was grabbed roughly by the collar and thrown against his own home. His life flashed before his very eyes just as the first punch made contact. If there was a single thing Alfred regretted in his life at that point, it was befriending a person like Toris.

After escaping Toris, Alfred ran into his house and locked the door after himself. His twin sister, Amelia, screamed when she saw her brother covered in blood, which caused their mother to come running, demanding to know who did that to her son. Though the truth finally came out a day or two later, the bridge had already been burned between the two neighbor boys.

Having no idea as to what had really happened, Toris felt at a loss when Alfred told him they couldn't hang out anymore.

.

Early October, 2015, Fort Madison, Iowa

Toris sighed as he returned to his cell from talking to Alena on the phone. He grabbed his comb and brushed out his hair, which was growing back so beautifully those days. It was almost long enough to put into a ponytail whenever he was working outside. His hair had always been longer than a lot of the other boys his age, but he prefered it that way. Something about having hair long enough that you could get it out of your way when you needed to felt oddly satisfying to him.

"How was your call?" Feliks asked, sitting up in his bunk. "Was it Alena?"

"Who else would it be?" Toris laughed. "My mom always talks to me in person instead." He smiled to himself. "It's always comforting when Alena calls me. There are times where I feel like everyone back home forgot all about me, but her calls remind me that they all still really do care. They remind me that I'm not alone."

Feliks was silent for a moment. "I'm glad that you have Alena," he stated. "Being alone after having to experience this place is the worst feeling in the world. It took nearly a year here and you becoming my cellmate to make me realize that I'm actually not alone. Sure, the relationships that I lost will never be recovered, but you helped me find new ones along the way. To be honest, I feel indebted to you. Just when I thought that life didn't mean a damn thing anymore, you showed up out of nowhere and completely changed my way of thinking. Whether you actually committed your crime or not doesn't matter to me. You helped me feel less alone, and for that I am eternally grateful."

At first, Toris was at a loss for words as everything Feliks had said clicked into his mind. Someone was actually grateful to him even given the circumstances he was in? That was a concept that was hard for him to wrap his mind around. "You're grateful?" he asked.

"Of course I am!" Feliks enthused. "You've even introduced me to some pretty incredible people! I look forward to phone calls from Alena, and sometimes Jiri is with her so I can talk to him too. They remind me that there really is a chance that there are some people out there who really do care about me." He blushed and looked down at the floor. "Though you don't realize it, you have given me more than I could have ever dreamed to receive from anyone."

Toris walked over and leaned against Feliks's bunk, resting his arms atop each other and resting his head on them. He gazed up at his cellmate. "You don't need to thank me for anything. Just because you did one illegal thing doesn't mean you're not worthy of just as much love as everyone else. No one is perfect, and the people I know realize that. They don't care what either of us may or may not have done. All they see is people worthy of love. That's how Alena has always been since I met her."

"You're fortunate to have known such great people," the blond sighed, smiling. His smiled down at Toris. "And I'm fortunate to have met them through you. Up until you showed up, I don't think I ever had anyone in my life that cared for me as much as you do. It sounds even more fucking pathetic when I say it out loud." Feliks chuckled grimly. "Why do you even bother with me, Toris? I have no family, no future, nothing."

"I bother with you because you're you," the brunet simply answered. "Is that not reason enough?" He crept his fingers on the hand of his top arm over to Feliks's hand, making his index and middle fingers seem like legs walking over. "Have you ever thought that you've done things for me as well?"

"Like what?" Feliks scoffed. Though he put on an act of being indifferent, his fingers intertwined with Toris's once they reached his.

"You helped me realize that it's okay to mess up. Also, this place isn't so bad with you here." He squeezed his cellmate's hand. "I wouldn't have adjusted well at all if you hadn't been by my side, Feliks. You've done so much more for me than you realize. I wish there were a way to open your eyes to that."

"Nope, sorry. There's no way to do something like that," Feliks quickly replied, looking away from Toris.

"Whether you're blind to it or not, the fact still remains that I still wouldn't be who I am today without you. I was so distressed and so caught up in myself when I first got here, and I doubt I ever would have come out of my shell without your help." He chuckled to himself. "Deny it all you want, but that won't change the fact that it's true."

"Your stubbornness when it comes to these kinds of things makes it difficult to argue with you, you know that?" Feliks complained, cracking a small smile to Toris. "Once you've got an idea in your head about something, you're hooked on it."

Toris beamed up at Feliks. "You say that like it's a bad thing." He winked at the blond once he caught his eye. His heartbeat picked up in pace when Feliks smiled at him. That smile was the thing that kept him going on the particularly rough days.

"You're staring at me so lovingly," the blond laughed. "Your eyes almost have hearts for the pupils. That's pretty gay, Toris."

The other man's cheeks immediately flushed as he averted his eyes. "Why do you gotta be like that?" he complained, trying to hide his embarrassment. Even if he was embarrassed by it, he knew that Feliks was right. That was, indeed, the gaze that Toris was holding, a loving gaze.

"Did I hit a nerve?" Feliks smiled a sadistic smile. "You didn't deny it, though."

"How could I deny something that we both know is true? Yes, I look at you lovingly because I really do love you. But can you blame me? I mean, you're charming and charismatic. People listen to you when you speak because of the way you project yourself. I've always been envious, but now I see it more as you're best with the things that I'm no good at. Maybe we can be the strengths to each other's weaknesses."

"Bold of you to assume that I have weaknesses."

Toris yanked on Feliks's hand and brought his face down to his level. "Shut up," he laughed before planting a heartfelt kiss on the other man's lips. His mouth formed into a smile. "You are the absolute worst, you know that?"

"Even if I am, you can't deny the fact that you adore me. Now tell me you love me."

The brunet cupped his cellmate's face in his hands, smiling lovingly at him. "I love you, you atrocious fuckhead."

"Now that's more like it," Feliks laughed, happily kissing the man before him.

.

A week later, Toris and Feliks got fantastic news. They were both called to the same visitation room at the same time. Having never had a visitor before, Feliks was just about beside himself as they made their way.

"Is it really her?" he excitedly asked. "Did she really come to see us?"

Toris chuckled to himself. "She kept telling me she would try to find time to, and it looks like she finally did. I'm excited for you to meet her. She's a legit angel." He smiled widely. "I think you'll really like her."

"Is she really as beautiful as I imagine her to be?" the blond asked, eyes lighting up. He had a mental image of Alena that he hoped she would live up to. If she was anything like Toris claimed she was, he was prepared for her to be his image of her and so much more.

"Feliks, I swear that she's everything you imagine, and so much more," his cellmate assured.

After being put through the process of getting ready for visitors, Toris and Feliks were led into the room reserved for inmates and their visitors. Inside the room were many random people, but two of them stuck out. There was a girl with dark brown hair and sparkling, brown eyes sitting at a table with a boy who had dark hair and green eyes. They were chatting up as if they were old friends, yet no inmates could be seen anywhere near them. That only meant one thing.

The girl's eyes lit up the moment they rested on Toris. She jumped up from her seat and ran to her friend, jumping up into his arms and hugging him. "Toris! It's really you!" she cried out with glee, tears of joy threatening to escape her eyes.

Toris barely had time to catch the girl, who was much, much smaller than him in stature. He hugged her tightly, missing the feel of hugging anyone but Feliks and his own mother. "It's me," he confirmed, so overwhelmed with joy that he could barely speak. "Is that Jiri here with you?"

She giggled happily. "Yeah, that's him." Her arms tightened around Toris one more time before he set her back down on the floor. "He's like my guard dog. He insisted on tagging along when I told him I was planning on visiting. His words were, 'A pretty girl like you should never travel to a place like that alone.'"

"I'll make sure to thank him for accompanying you when we get over there," Toris happily said. "I was expecting him the whole time. Just the thought of you traveling two hours away by yourself to see two men in prison probably almost gave the poor guy a stroke."

"You know him so well," she giggled, grinning up at Toris. "Then again, you were always quite observant." She grabbed his hands and pulled his face down to her level before kissing his cheek. "You're still as perfect as ever." Her brown eyes then drifted over to Feliks and widened. "And you're Feliks?"

Feliks grinned widely. "And you're Alena," he replied. He couldn't believe how beautiful the woman standing before him was. In his opinion, Toris really didn't do her justice in his description of her, because she was so much more beautiful than he could have ever imagined.

Toris was surprised that Feliks's eyes hadn't turned into straight-up hearts. "I think he's smitten," he laughed. He clapped a hand on Feliks's shoulder and led him to the table where the boy was waiting. "Hey, Jiri," he greeted. "It's been awhile. How are things?"

The guy at the table rolled his eyes. "Between keeping up with Alena and Lilli and college classes, I have my hands tied." He groaned. "The girls are such a handful. Lilli cried because I wouldn't let her come with us. But it's not like I could, considering who the warden is."

Toris was quiet for a moment as he tried to piece together everything that Jiri was saying. He had a vague idea of who Lilli was, considering how much he and Alena talked about her lately, but he didn't understand what the younger girl had to do with the warden of the prison. "What do you mean?"

"I don't think Toris has ever met Lilli," Alena slowly said. She smiled at Toris. "Lilli is our friend. She's a senior in high school, and her brother is the warden here." The girl lowered her voice as she continued. "Vash is a piece of shit, though. He belongs in a place like this more than the two of you do." Her expression darkened. "He's just a worthless-"

Jiri cut her off. "Len, remember, we're here to visit with them, not rant about the man in charge of them." He sighed and turned to Feliks. "Hey, man, I'm Jiri Sykora. We've spoken on the phone before. I've been friends with Toris for years."

When Feliks looked up at Jiri, his eyes widened even more. He began to wonder if Toris only hung out with the most beautiful of people. It was almost unfair how attractive the people his cellmate was friends with were. "It's nice to meet you, Jiri. I'm Feliks, Toris's cellmate."

"I've heard all about you from Alena," the other boy said, smiling a brilliant smile. "Though this is her first time meeting you in person, she really does think the world of you." He was quiet for a moment, as if wondering if he should say what he was planning on saying. "I've looked into you, I hope you don't mind. Your story is really sad, and I'm sorry you had to go through what you did. If I had gone through something that terrible, I very well could've done what you did." It was a moment before he spoke again. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't blame you for what you did."

It took Feliks a moment to process what Jiri had just said to him. Once it all clicked, he felt a tight squeeze on his heart. No one other than Toris had ever told him that they understand, especially someone who had just met him. He was touched, to say the least. "Thank you," he finally managed to say. "It really means a lot."

Alena smiled and grabbed his hands from across the table. "I am so glad that I finally get to meet you!" she squealed. "Oh, I can tell already that we are going to be the best of friends!" Her hands squeezed his tightly as she giggled. "This is the start of a beautiful friendship, I can just feel it!"

Jiri shifted uncomfortably as Alena's hands squeezed the inmate's. He looked up at Toris to express the thoughts going through his head, to which the other man nodded. His gaze then fell back to Feliks and Alena's tightly-clasped hands, soul burning with jealousy.

"So how was your drive here?" Toris asked them. "Did you find your way okay?"

"I was navigating from the passenger's seat!" Alena proudly claimed, beaming up at her long-time friend. "When we reached that one town that was literally just a gas station and a racetrack, Jiri thought I had gotten us lost." She stuck her tongue out at the man next to her, playfully blowing him a raspberry. "Oh, right! The racetrack!" Her eyes lit up as she looked up at Toris to complete her new thought. "Do you remember Alfie Jones?"

Toris grimaced at the mention of that name. "I try not to," he replied, trying to cut the tension out of his voice.

"Even after all these years, you still hate him," she teased. "Anyway, his adorable brother Matthew came out of the closet a few months ago, like we all said he would." Alena giggled, remembering how they all took bets on if Matthew would come out before or after graduating high school. "So Mattie had this mystery boyfriend for, like, the longest time, but their engagement is now Facebook official! But you'll never guess who the guy is!" She leaned over the table to Toris for dramatic emphasis. "Remember that one albino racecar driver?"

"No way!" the inmate exclaimed, struggling to control the volume and disbelief in his voice. "That Gilbert guy?!"

Alena nodded excitedly. "Yeah! Quiet, little Mattie Williams and that loudmouth!" She laughed for about half a minute before continuing. "Well that town nearby with the racetrack is where Mattie and his fiance go, like, every weekend during racing season! I'm so tempted to go to one of the races sometime to see how good Gilbert actually is! I think they're doing a race this weekend with school buses!" Her eyes lit up. "If I go, I'll take pictures and mail them to you!"

"Thanks, Len," Toris laughed. He then turned to Feliks. "Have you ever been to any of the amateur races?"

Feliks, thrown off by the conversation being directed to him, blinked in surprise at Toris for a moment before answering. "Not that I remember," he slowly said. "The only big events I've ever been to is the Dutch Masters Show Choir Invitational at my high school and the Tulip Time Parade that was in Pella every year." He thought for a moment. "I remember some of my friends talking about Nascar, though. But isn't that pro racing?"

"Yeah," Jiri said, answering the blond's question. "I personally don't understand the appeal of people driving around in a circle at high speeds, but whatever, I guess." He made it apparent in his tone of voice that he had no interest in racing at all. In fact, from the way Jiri had spoken about anything other than Feliks's crime, it seemed that he had no interest in anything. "The racetrack down here looks pretty janky anyway."

"What sorts of things do you enjoy, Jiri?" Feliks asked, cocking his head to the side with curiosity. He found his new companion interesting and wanted to learn more about his quirks.

The handsome man across the table from Feliks look surprised and began to think. "I'd have to say that I enjoy reading," he began. "I'm always taking care of my younger siblings as well. Well, not just them, but also the girl Lilli that Alena mentioned. Things have been rough at her house, so she's been staying at my house more often than not."

"You seem like you would make a great big brother," the blond commented. "If that Lilli girl isn't actually related to you, then that must mean that she trusts you a lot to be around you so much." His mind flashed to his younger sisters. "I always loved being an older brother. My little sisters were a lot of fun to hang out with."

Alena smiled brightly. "I bet you miss them, don't you?"

Feliks felt himself choking up slightly. "Yeah," he managed to say. "I really miss them a lot."

.

At the end of the visit, Alena and Jiri watched as Toris and Feliks were escorted back into the main portion of the prison. They had both enjoyed their visit with the inmates and were almost sad to see them go. Having promised to come back soon, they said their goodbyes.

"What did you think of Feliks?" Jiri asked Alena as they got their belongings from the lockers in the lobby. "He seems pretty interesting to me."

Alena thought for a moment. "You know, I really like him," she decided. "He's really nice, and I feel that he will be a good person for Toris."

"What do you mean?" Jiri asked, closing his respective locker. He held his hand out for the key to Alena's locker so that he could turn it in.

"Couldn't you see it?" she giggled. "Feliks is so in love with our Toris that he almost can't stand it." She handed her key to her companion and thought for a moment. "I don't think Toris realizes just how in love that guy really is, though." Her laughter echoed around the lobby as she followed Jiri to turn in their locker keys. "It's a real shame, because I can see how hard Feliks is trying."

"Is Toris even gay?" Jiri asked, opening the door for her as they left the prison.

"You know, I'm not completely sure," she answered. "But I do know one thing. He really does care a lot about Feliks. That part is just common knowledge." Alena grabbed Jiri's hands excitedly, stopping them both in their tracks. She beamed at him. "One thing is for sure, though. I can't wait to see how this all turns out!"


	8. Chapter 8

Mid-October, 2015, Fort Madison, Iowa

"When do you suppose Jiri and Alena will come again?" Feliks asked, lying across his bunk and hanging his head upside down off of it, his legs extending up the wall of their cell. He knew he was probably getting annoying with that question, but he'd had such a great time with them that he couldn't wait for the next time they visited.

"You ask me that every day, you know," Toris replied, not even bothering to look up from his solitaire game that was laid out on his bunk. "I haven't gotten to ask Alena about it yet, so I don't have an answer for you. I'll let you know when I do." He stared at the cards, trying to contemplate his next move. "Why don't you try finding something to entertain yourself with in the meantime?"

"Like what?" the blond groaned, rolling over and sticking his head down into Toris's bunk space. "I can't think of anything. I'm just so terribly bored that I could cry."

"Then cry," his cellmate replied, gathering up the cards and getting ready to shuffle them. "You're an adult. If you can't entertain yourself by this point, then I honestly don't know what to tell you." He sighed and shuffled the cards. "We have had this conversation every day lately."

Feliks pointed to the clock in the corner. "Well, it's not daytime anyway," he stated matter-of-factly. "In fact, we're going to have to go to bed soon. So how about you entertain me, Tor?"

The brunet sighed and put the cards back in the box. "Why do I have to be responsible for your entertainment? Isn't there something you can do that doesn't include me?"

"Hmm," the blond said, tapping his index finger to his chin as he pretended to think. "Nope, I can't think of a single thing." He grinned widely at his cellmate, a mischievous look in his eyes. "At least, I can't think of anything while the lights are on."

"What makes you think we will be fooling around tonight after lights out?" Toris asked, looking up at the blond. "We haven't done anything like that in a long time, you know. Besides, it's not like we actually have that kind of relationship anyway."

Feliks blinked in shock. "We don't?" he asked, baffled at even the thought of it. "Then what the hell kind of relationship do we even have?"

"Beats me," the other replied with a shrug. "But last I checked, we weren't together." Even Toris had started to become fed up with the words he was saying. For weeks, he had been attempting to define his and Feliks's relationship, but there was no way to do so. Instead, he just decided not to do suggestive things with his cellmate anymore until he decided what they really were. "You always have me feeling all backwards and shit. There are days where we are close and everything, but then we're at each other's throats the next. It's so fucking confusing because I don't know which feeling is real."

"What if they both are?" Feliks suggested, flipping off of his own bunk and standing on the floor next to Toris's. "You can admire someone and still get mad at them for things. It's perfectly normal."

"Not from what I've seen. You know about Jiri and Alena, right? Jiri has been in love with Alena since they were kids, yet she barely gives him the time of day. She claims that she loves him, but it would be too complicated for them to be together. What the hell is that even supposed to mean? How are either of them supposed to be happy with ridiculous complications that don't even make sense keeping them apart?" He sighed and pulled at his hair in frustration. "If that's going on for two normal people who aren't serving life sentences in prison, then how could anything work out between the two of us that would be fitting?"

"You seem to have thought a lot about this," the blond stated, obviously at a loss for words at the sudden speech from his cellmate.

"Dude, you don't even know the half of it," Toris groaned back. "I'm always so confused with you because you act like you're interested, and then you are just plain cruel other times. You have me questioning my preferences in people, yet you dash all preferences I have of you when you're being a straight-up ass. What do you expect me to do? It's so frustrating when you do shit like that. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel. Am I supposed to care about you? Am I supposed to despise you? I can never tell how I'm supposed to feel because nothing about the relationship between us is consistent. Don't you get that?"

Feliks took a moment to process the other's words. "You know, I never really thought about it like that," he finally said. "To me, you seem to be the more cold and standoffish one. Then again, I guess it's a difference in perspective. That said, I'm just as confused about us as you are, you know. You're not the only one who doesn't understand the dynamic of us. Sure, what we have is a little weird and undefinable, but shouldn't that be okay? It just means that it's unique. What's wrong with something that's not quite ordinary to others? Just means that it's more special to us." He shrugged indifferently. "I don't see a thing wrong with it."

"Then let me tell you what's wrong with it," the brunet stated, standing up and getting slightly above eye level with the other. "The biggest thing that's wrong with it is that I don't know what your real opinion of me is. Do you admire me? Do you hate me? Half the time, I really can't fucking tell with you, and it frustrates me to no fucking end. If there were more clarification on your end on what you really feel, then we wouldn't have this problem."

"Clarification?" the blond asked, exasperated. "What the hell kind of clarification do you need anyway? Do we need it in fucking writing? Want us to make matching bracelets? What can I do to make my feelings for you obvious?"

"Oh, so now you want my opinion on things?" Toris asked. He didn't even flinch as the lights were shut off in their cell, maintaining his ground in the conversation. "Since you want to make your feelings obvious and want me to understand them, then how about you come up with that yourself?"

"And that's your final answer?" Feliks asked. Though they couldn't see each other very well, it was apparent that he was being serious.

"Obviously. What else would it be?"

"Just making sure." With that, the blond pushed his cellmate down onto his bunk and straddled his hips, leaning over him. He caught Toris's lips with his own. "Actions speak louder than words," he muttered against the other inmate's lips.

Toris nearly melted at Feliks's touch. He had said he wanted clarification, so he guessed that's what this was. His heart pounded wildly in his chest as the kisses got deeper, steamier, and more passionate. What did Feliks really have in store for him in regards for clarification. Something told him that what was happening at that moment was only the beginning.

Feliks began to get more aggressive with his approach to conveying his feelings. He wanted to make sure that his cellmate If it was clarification that Toris wanted, then it was clarification he would get. He wanted Toris to know exactly where he stood with him. There was nothing more important to him at that moment.

With each kiss and each touch, the brunet let his guard down until he was practically defenseless and at the mercy of his cellmate. His mind was telling him that this was no different than all of the other times they had done things like this, but his heart and libido were telling him otherwise. Though he knew he shouldn't provoke more things of this nature out of Feliks, he just couldn't resist as he grabbed the blond's hips and sensually squeezed them. Toris knew that he was "playing with fire" by this point, but he could no longer stop himself. He was going to get all of the clarification he would ever need right then and there.

The blond gasped against his soon-to-be lover's lips at the sudden pressure on his hips. It only turned him on even more than he already was. He could feel how strong his lustful desire was toward Toris, and he could only hope that the other felt the same. His hand slowly reached down to the other man's pelvis. Once there, he could tell that his cellmate wanted this just as badly as he did, if not more.

Their hands were soon caressing each other's bodies, getting more and more aggressive with their touches with each passing minute. They were soon touching under the clothes as well as over them, both men feeling as if they were burning up with their desire for the other. Feeling feverish, the two stripped off the top half of their clothing, hoping for at least some relief from the heat building up inside of them.

Toris felt as if he were going insane. All of his thoughts were on his ever-growing erection and the cause of it. The thing he wanted the most at that moment was relief from all of the pressure building up between his legs. His hips impatiently bucked against Feliks's. He could only focus on his lustful thoughts and desires, pushing all logic he had formerly known into the very depths of his brain for the time being.

"It sounds to me like you're ready," Feliks teased, sticking his hand down Toris's pants and grabbing his length tightly. He smiled sadistically at Toris's moan of desire. "This appears to be what you want." His hand stroked up and down in a sensual rhythm as he moved it faster and faster, relishing the moans coming from the other's lips.

The brunet grasped the sheets on his bunk tightly as he felt himself reaching his limit. With one hand, he pushed down his pants just enough so that when he finally reached his climax it wouldn't get all over the inside of them.

Seeing the new development in the scenario, Feliks took that opportunity to take the entirety of Toris's member into his mouth. He bobbed his head and swirled his tongue around it, motivated by the sounds that the other man was making. His mouth was suddenly full of Toris's warm spew. Feliks quickly swallowed it to avoid any of it getting anywhere.

Toris lay back on his bunk, gasping as he slowly returned from his euphoria. "Is that the clarification?" he panted out, unable to open his eyes just yet.

"What do you think?" the blond asked, climbing off the top of him and snuggling closer. "Was it to your liking?" He twisted his fingers into Toris's hair and played with strands of the brunet locks.

"I think that you have made your feelings quite clear," the brunet stated, slowly beginning to blink his eyes open. "Damn."

"Now, as to what you were saying before all of this," Feliks began, "what would you say we are? Are we still in the same boat as Jiri and Alena, or have we reached a point of understanding?" His slender fingers traced the muscles on his cellmate's torso. "What would you say?"

"What would I say?" Toris parroted. He thought about it for a moment. "I would say that your feelings are clear to me. Due to this, I would like us to remain this way if possible."

"Meaning what?"

"I have a feeling that you know exactly what I mean," he stated before rolling over on top of Feliks to return the favor done to him.

.

The next morning, the two woke up together on Toris's bunk. They were, at first, confused at how they woke up like that, but then they remembered the night before. Both men blushed a deep scarlet, not even daring to look at one another. Neither of them could hardly believe that had happened between them the night before, and waking up together like that was proof in itself that it all really did happen. It was enough to freak them both out.

"Wow," Toris sighed, being the first to say anything. "We really did all of that last night, didn't we?" He thought back to the way his cellmate had made him feel, and the fluttery feeling in his chest when the two had reached the definition of "lovers". Though it wasn't official between the two of them yet, he still felt pretty light-hearted about it.

Feliks sat up and combed his hair into place with his fingers. "We really did," he confirmed with a nod before yawning. "What an exciting turn of events, don't you think?" He smiled to himself, happy that he had succeeded in getting his feelings across. In his heart, he hoped that their relationship would blossom from there. "I can say one thing for sure. It's that I'm glad things finally got to this point."

"Yeah?" the other asked, sitting up as well. "I would have to agree with you on that. I'm glad we have finally reached this point with each other." He awkwardly sat there for a moment before saying, "So what comes now?"

The blond laughed. "Haven't you ever been in a relationship before?"

Toris blushed. "Not exactly," he quietly admitted. Though he didn't want to admit it, no one had ever been all that interested in him. He made girls and boys alike more nervous than he ever intended. "People don't tend to like me all that much."

"Well I like you," his cellmate gleefully stated, linking arms with him. "I'll guide you through this all from here on out. It'll be pretty fun."

The brunet nodded, more to himself than in agreement. He was inexperienced in the ways of relationships, but he hoped that Feliks would be able to guide him through them properly. Considering his cellmate's past, Toris was a bit iffy on trusting him to guide him through an ideal relationship, but he decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Feliks stood up and checked the clock. "It should be time for breakfast soon. I'm starving. Do things like what we did last night sure do work up your appetite the next morning."

Toris's stomach growled as he realized how hungry he was. "You've got that right," he groaned, feeling the hunger pangs kicking in. "I wonder what we're eating this morning. Let's hope it's not anything gross, you know?"

"You've got that right," the other man agreed, chuckling to himself. "Then again, even if it's gross, I'll probably still eat it, considering how hungry I am."

"That's fair," Toris replied, shrugging his agreement.

.

"You know, I never got around to asking this for some reason," Feliks began, looking across the table at Toris after breakfast, "but do you have any siblings? I feel we don't exactly talk about our families." He tried to think back to his cellmate ever talking about his family, but all he ever mentioned was his mother. That seemed slightly odd to Feliks.

"Well, when I was a kid, my dad lived with us," Toris began. "But it turns out he was having an affair with someone. I found this out when I met my little brothers. And it turns out, he had multiple mistresses. My brother Eduard is a senior in high school. He's pretty smart, and I think he's going to Iowa State University next year for college. My other little brother is named Raivis, and he's a sophomore in high school. Raivis actually attends the same high school I once did, while Eduard is at a different one." He thought for a moment. "Though my dad left my mom a long time ago to pursue other women, my mom still checks up on him to make sure he's well. He did such horrible things to her, but she still cares about him. I don't really understand it, but I guess it's whatever, you know?"

"I always figured that you were an only child," Feliks mused.

"Yeah, me too," the brunet stated, laughing. "I have only interacted with Eduard a couple times, but Raivis and I used to run into each other a lot before I came here. Sometimes, I felt like I interacted with Raivis more than our dad did." He smiled to himself. "My little brothers are good kids, but the three of us couldn't be any more different. Eduard is the logical one of us, and he is going to college for engineering. He's such a fucking nerd. Raivis is still pretty young, but he's actually really smart as well. He just doesn't apply himself like Eduard does and stays at the same pace as the others around him. Like, if he wanted to, Raivis could easily graduate high school early, but since he's so sociable, I doubt he would."

"You really know a lot about your little brothers," the blond said, gazing at the man across the table from him with a look of complete admiration. "It's kinda cute, you know?"

"Enough about me," Toris said, blushing. "What about you and your family?"

Feliks thought back to his own family, something he didn't like thinking about. "I have two half-sisters and a step-sister. They're all younger than me. Their names are Hannah, Lynne, and Zoey. Hannah and Zoey are my mom's kids, and Lynne is my step-sister. Lynne is a junior in high school, if I remember correctly. I think Hannah and Zoey are in middle school. Like, I know Hannah is either in her last year of middle school or a freshman in high school. Zoey is either in sixth or seventh grade." He chuckled to himself. "I'm probably the worst brother, not knowing things like this about my own siblings that I lived with, while you know things like this about your little brothers that you barely see. I think my mind is trying to block the three of them from my memory due to my step-dad." He was quiet for a moment. "You know, I don't think forgetting them would be that bad of a thing. They probably want to forget me, too."

Toris observed Feliks from across the table as he talked about his siblings. How could forgetting their brother be a good thing for his sisters? That seemed pretty cruel and unfair. "Why do you think them forgetting you would be a good thing? Don't you want them to remember the time they spent with you?"

"Not if they'll be haunted by what I did," the blond decisively stated. "It's best that they forget me if all of their fond memories of me are tainted by what I did to their father. Wouldn't you agree?"

The other man felt put on the spot by the question. "I guess that all depends on perspective. Eduard and Raivis obviously know what I am being accused of, but I wouldn't want them to forget me over something like that. Maybe I'm just holding on to a faint hope that they'll remember me as the Toris they knew before it all went down." He shrugged. "It may just be wishful thinking, though."

"I can't hope something like that for my sisters," Feliks sighed. "My crime involved them as well as their father. I involved my whole family in it." He looked sincerely troubled by what he had done. Usually, he put on a show of what he had done to end up there, but at that moment, when talking about his younger sisters, he looked almost pained by what he had done. "At the time, I felt a burning hatred for all of them, and that was why I made them unknowingly eat him…"

"I honestly forgot about that part," the brunet quietly admitted. He wondered how strong someone's hate for a certain would have to be for them to kill them and feed them to their family. If someone had done that to Toris, he didn't know what he would think of the person afterwards, even if he'd previously had a good relationship with them.

"Yeah, well I can't forget that part," his companion replied. "I doubt I'll ever forget the betrayed looks on their faces when I told them what they were really eating. At first, they didn't believe me, but then they saw what was left of him in the garage. I'm so fucked up. To this day, I wondered why I didn't just leave it at killing that bastard. Why did I have to go as far as to cook up parts of him and feed them to his wife and children? What the hell is wrong with me? How did I get that sick and twisted?" He began to feel more and more nauseous as he thought about what he had done. "What the fuck?"

Toris, watching his friend grow more and more pale by the second, reached across the table and placed a hand on his shoulder. "No matter how fucked up what happened may have been, there's nothing we can do about the past. Your best bet is to move forward from it." Easy for him to say, since he didn't do anything, but he hoped that his words could cheer Feliks up, even if only a little bit. "I know I have no right to say these things because I don't know what you're going through internally, but I want to help."

After a moment, Feliks's mouth formed into a small smile when he looked up at Toris. "Thanks," he said, feeling the horrible feelings inside of him start to dissipate. His thinking started to turn more positive as he focused on the brunet. "You know, maybe with you around, the burden of what I've done won't be as heavy."

"I hope that your sisters will contact you one day," Toris told him. "Even if it's only once, I hope that you get whatever you need, whether it be closure or forgiveness."

"You know, for a mass murderer, you're not that bad of a guy, Toris," the blond stated, smirking.

"How many times do I have to tell you that I'm innocent?!" the other man exclaimed. "I didn't kill anyone! I've just been suspected of it, and it hasn't been proven that I did it!"

"Well it hasn't been proven that you didn't either," Feliks replied, enjoying provoking his cellmate. It healed him slightly on the inside.

"Why are you like this?!" Toris, exasperated, tugged at his hair in frustration. "No matter how many times I tell you that I'm innocent, you always do this!"

Feliks smiled to himself as he watched Toris rant and rave about his innocence. In his mind, he hoped that things would always remain this way. He didn't know what on earth he would ever do if it turned out that Toris really was innocent. But to him, that was a thought for another time.


	9. Chapter 9

Late January, 2016, Fort Madison, Iowa

Toris yawned and stretched in his bunk, feeling the chill of the morning from the window next to him. He frowned and pulled his blanket back over him. Why was it always so cold in the mornings? Couldn't they get better heat in there?

"Too cold," Feliks muttered from his bunk. Moments later, he was under Toris's blanket with him. "Keep me warm, 'kay?" His eyes drooped shut with exhaustion as he laid his head on his cell mate's chest and began softly snoring once more."

The brunet smiled fondly at his lover and closed his eyes as well, relishing the warmth that Feliks had brought to his bunk. He had been shivering all night, but now he felt he could relax with someone so warm next to him. His eyes drooped shut as well as he listened to the other's even breathing as he slept on. Something about that morning seemed different from the others, yet Toris had no idea how that could be so since every day seemed to blur together in this place.

Deciding not to think too far into it, Toris drifted back to sleep as well, only to be awakened by one of the guards telling him he had a visitor.

Groggy from being woken back up, Toris rubbed at his eyes as he walked into the visitation room. No one had told him who was there to see him. Maybe they had, but he was too tired to listen. Either way, he was surprised to see his mother sitting at a table, waiting for him.

"Mom, what's going on?" he asked, sitting across from her. "Usually you let me know in advance if you're visiting. Did something happen?" He fixed an even gaze at her as he studied her expression. Something seemed a little off, but he couldn't tell what it was. "Is everything okay?"

Justine Laurinaitis stared back at her son for a moment. "I was at the grocery store yesterday," she began. "Yes, the grocery store."

Toris tried to ignore the tightness in his chest upon hearing where she went. After all, it was the place where he had been accused of shooting random shoppers. "W-Why are you telling me this?" he managed to say. "What does that have to do with you not telling me why you're here?"

"I wanted to be the first to tell you," she said, breaking eye contact and staring down at the table. "They found a witness, Toris. She's a young girl, about high school age. After keeping her silence for nearly a year, she finally spoke up." Her eyes filled with tears. "She even has a receipt from her purchase that day. Apparently she was on her way out of the store when she heard gunshots, and she turned around and saw you holding a revolver." Justina began to sob profusely. "Why did this have to happen? I feel like a failure as a mother!"

The inmate didn't hear anything after that. He was blocking out the rest of her words after hearing about the so-called witness. "But Mom," he slowly said, voice quiet at first but rising in volume as he became hysterical, "I didn't do anything! I didn't do it! You have to believe me!"

"What's going on over here?" a guard asked, walking over to their table. "You need to keep it down, Toris. You're disturbing the other guests."

"I don't care!" Toris shouted, ignoring the stares of everyone else in the room. "I didn't do it! If I had done something like that, I know that I would remember it for sure! I wouldn't do something so crazy without a reason anyway! There's no way I could've done it! That girl is lying! She's slandering my name! That's not right!"

Justina sighed. "Toris, she got photo evidence that it was you," she softly said. "Apparently, she took a picture of what she saw and is planning on going to the police with it today. Why she kept quiet for so long is something I will never understand, but I knew I had to tell you after I found out. I hate that she's doing this to you. We've been trying to believe that you're innocent, but now she has pictures of you caught red-handed."

"But I didn't do it!" he shouted again. He couldn't even feel the grip of the guards as they dragged him away. "You have to believe me! I would never kill another person! Never! That's not the kind of person I am!" His shouts were drowned out by the door closing between him and the visitation room, but he could see the tears on his mother's face clear as day. "I didn't do it," he weakly said as he stopped fighting the guards.

.

"So some girl showed up out of nowhere after nearly a year and says that she had evidence that you did it?" Feliks asked, surprise in his voice. "That's total fucking bullshit! How can she just show up out of nowhere months later and just be like, 'Yeah, I got this picture of him that makes him the killer,'? That's bullshit!" He threw his pillow onto the floor, trying to keep his cool. "No! That's not right! She can't just do that out of nowhere! Do you know who the girl is?"

"Not a clue," Toris sighed, still struggling with the incriminating "evidence" that was found against him. "But you're right. This is total fucking bullshit." His voice was devoid of the usual life and cheer that it normally possessed. Instead, he sounded like a monotonous broken doll. "It doesn't make any sense."

"What if the reason it took so long for her to do this is because she photoshopped it?" the blond thought aloud. "Like, what if she spent the past few months working on this picture in photoshop, and once it looked realistic, she decided to use it against you?" He thought for a moment. "Do you have any girls that hate you? Like, really hate you?"

"Not that I can think of." The brunet sighed and toppled over on his bed, laying his head on his pillow. "This is all so stupid and unfair. I didn't do anything, and now there's suddenly proof that I did something that I would remember doing if I did. I hate this. Why does this kind of shit have to happen to me? My life was going so well until all of this bullshit started."

Feliks remained quiet. "Do you think Jiri and Alena know anything about this?" he asked after nearly a minute of complete silence. "Considering they're your friends, don't you think they would have some sort of input on it?" He thought for a moment. "Maybe they'll call once all of it goes down."

"I wouldn't hold my breath," Toris groaned. "They have more things on their minds than to worry about someone like me. I mean, Jiri is studying to be a surgeon, and Alena has a life outside of me as well. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if they just didn't contact me again after all of this. It's not like there would be much for them to say anyway, you know? If that picture turns out to be 'real', then there's nothing I can say or do that will change anyone's mind about me. That also means that my friends can all give up on me and use that as an excuse to."

"Toris, you're being irrational," his cell mate replied. "These are your friends we're talking about. Jiri and Alena even drove all the way down here to visit you a couple times. Do you really think they would give up on you that easily?"

"If I turn out to be a 'murderer' they will," the brunet weakly replied. "It's not like a friend of mine hasn't done something like this before." He recalled the painful memory. "One day, out of nowhere, my neighbor suddenly told me that he wasn't allowed to be friends with me anymore. He made up some lie about me beating him up or something and got everyone else to believe it as well. His mom called my mom, and the whole thing got out of hand way too fast." A frown rested on his lips. "Up until that day, I would almost say that he was my closest friend. I don't know why he would do something like that, you know? Alfred had lots of people who didn't like him, but I didn't think that someone would beat him up and he'd use my name instead of theirs when explaining who did it." He sighed deeply. "It's almost as if what's happening right now is a repeat of that situation, but only a million times worse. I would never hurt anyone."

Knowing that Toris couldn't see him, Feliks slowly brought his own hand to his throat. For a moment, he could still feel his lover's hand around it and felt his stomach drop. His mind swam with many possibilities of what could be the truth behind all of it. If Toris didn't remember attacking him that one time, then who is to say that he wouldn't remember attacking his friend or shooting up a grocery store. Though Feliks hated thinking that way, there was no way that he could just rule out that possibility. His heart felt heavy as led as he thought deeper and deeper into it.

After awhile, Feliks turned around to face Toris and saw that he had fallen asleep. Maybe that was for the best at that point. He brushed Toris's bangs from his forehead and leaned down to kiss it. "I won't let them hurt you," he whispered to his sleeping lover. "If they're going to hurt you, it'll be over my dead body. Or theirs. Either works."

.

For the next few days, Toris didn't speak much, not even to Feliks. His appetite had nearly disappeared as well, which worried Feliks. It was obvious that he was rapidly losing weight due to stress, lack of food, and lack of sleep, but there was nothing the blond could do about it. The last thing either of them wanted was to get the guards or the warden involved. That would result in the two of them being watched at all times.

Feliks frowned as he watched Toris push away his lunch tray without touching it for the fourth day in a row. "You should really at least try to eat," he stated, pushing the tray back at the brunet.

"What's the point?" Toris sighed. "If that photo marks me as guilty, then I don't want to keep living anyway." He buried his head in his arms, which were rested on the table. "I should probably just wither away to nothing. It's not like anyone would miss me anyway."

"I would," the blond replied, shoveling a spoonful of corn into his mouth. He chewed a little and swallowed. "This isn't the end of the world, I promise. Besides, even if you're found guilty, what are they going to do? It's not like you're not already here."

"That's easy for you to say," his cell mate groaned. "You actually like being here. You like the life away from your family. Well I don't. I was hoping to get out of here and go back home, so I could forget any of this ever happened."

The tines of Feliks's fork barely grazed the side of Toris's hand. Had it even been one centimeter off, the brunet's hand would've been skewered. "What exactly do you plan on forgetting?" the blond asked, irritation in his voice. "You're saying you want to forget me as well?" The pain and irritation in his voice shone through with every word. "Even though you told me you would be there for me, that you wanted to be there for me. It was all just a lie?"

Toris's head snapped up as he looked at Feliks, panicked and wide-eyed. "No!" he quickly interjected, voice an octave higher than normal due to panic. "I didn't mean it like that!"

"Then what exactly did you mean?" his lover snapped. "You say hurtful things, and you never even care about how the people they're about feel. It seems like you try to go out of your way to hurt my feelings lately. Well, you did it. It's done. Is there any more salt you would like to rub into the wound while it's still open?"

The other inmate lowered his head in shame. "I'm sorry, Feliks," he apologized. "I've been so agonized by everything going on, that I really must've said some harsh things to you without realizing it. I'll get better about that, I swear. My situation is really no excuse for my behavior, but I really am sorry. I hope you can forgive me, even if it will take some time."

"I know you've been having a rough time these past few days, but please try to get it together," his lover replied. "Also, I wanted to thank you for not using some bullshit line in your apology like, 'I really suck,' or 'I'm useless,' because I probably would've decked you if you had." Feliks crossed his arms over in his chest. "I hate when people make themselves the victims of the situation when they pretend to apologize."

"Was there someone you knew who did that?"

"My stepdad would always do that to my mom," Feliks answered. "He was a shitty person, so naturally his apologies were shitty as well. Every time he fucked up with my mom, he would always add in how useless he was into his apologies as a way to get her sympathy. That manipulative fuck. I hate him so much! Even after he's dead, why does he still come back to haunt me like this? It's not fair." He pounded his fist on the table. "Even though I killed him, why do I still have to be haunted by my memories of him every day? Why do I have to suffer even though I saved everyone from him?"

After regaining his senses, the blond turned to his cell mate. "I'm sorry, Toris," he stated. "I hijacked your apology and made it all about me for a moment. I know you're going through some shit right now, and it really is unfair. If you are found guilty due to the photo, do you think the people who care about you are going to think any less of you? I know I won't. And I don't think Jiri or Alena or your mom would either. You seem to be blind to the people who really care about you. We all chose to love you, even after everything went down, we're all still by your side through this. Guilty or not, I doubt that will ever change. Please don't shut out our kindness like this. It really sucks."

"Yeah," Toris mused. "You're right, Feliks. I really shouldn't obsess over this. It's not like there's a real verdict anyway, you know? There's still a chance that I can be proven innocent. I can't give up yet."

Feliks resisted the urge to roll his eyes back into his skull. Had Toris not heard a damn thing he had just said? Then again, he was glad that the brunet had finally stopped sulking. He smiled at his cell mate. "Good to see that you're getting back to your old mindset. I've missed you these past few days."

The burnet chuckled to himself. "Yeah, I can understand that. I really was lost in my head, wasn't I?"

"More lost than you know."

.

Feliks picked up the receiver to talk on the phone. He already had an idea of who was on the other line, but he wondered why she hadn't called Toris yet. "Hello?" he asked.

"Hey, Feliks, it's me," Alena replied on the other line. "I'm sure Toris already knows about the girl. There is no doubt in my mind that Justina went and told him the moment she found out." She sighed. "It's horrible, Feliks. It's an absolute shitshow up here with that girl suddenly speaking up. I don't know why it took her so long to do this, but it's really not helping those of us who still care about him. How's he holding up?"

"He's lost a bit of weight," the inmate honestly replied. "He hasn't been sleeping well or eating. I tried to get through to him earlier today, but I'm not exactly sure how well it was received. If he stays like this for much longer, the stress will probably kill him."

The girl on the other end of the call sighed. "I was afraid of that. Jiri and I have been worried sick about him. We want to come see him as soon as we can, but there is so much going on here that we can't leave yet. I hope we can get down there by the beginning of February. Please help Toris hang in there until then."

"That boy is so not dying on my watch," Feliks stated, rolling his eyes.

She breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you so much, Feliks. I'm so glad that I can depend on you to help in my place. This past has been so rough on all of us, but knowing that he has someone on the inside who is there for him helps us all rest easier at night. I don't care that society has branded you as a 'heartless killer'. You really do care for others, Feliks. I'm glad to call you my friend. You're such an important part of Toris's life, and even mine and Jiri's lives. Never change, Feliks."

Touched by her words, the blond couldn't help but smile. "I hope that things will calm down up there soon enough," he told her. "He needs the reassurance that you two still care about him, you know? Things are looking pretty dark for him at this point in time."

"Yeah, I hope things calm down as well," Alena replied. "I can't imagine how badly Toris is suffering through all of this right now. He believes that he is innocent, and now some kid shows up out of nowhere and brands him as guilty. The poor guy must be utterly destroyed on the inside." She clicked her tongue in disapproval. "I hate that I'm stuck up here and unable to help him at a time like this."

"No worries, Alena," Feliks assured. "He's in good hands."

"Thank you. I trust you, Feliks."

The inmate was dumbfounded for a moment. It had been so long since anyone had said those words to him. He couldn't afford to get sentimental at that moment, but damn, how he wanted to. Mentally reminding himself that this call was about Toris and not him, he quickly focused his mind on his cell mate.

"That's kind of you," he told Alena. "I'm glad that you can trust me with this. I swear, I won't let any harm come to our dear Toris. Not while I can help it."

"All I want is for him to be okay one day," she sighed. "He's never exactly had what you would call an easy life. I pitied him when we were children. Throughout our friendship, people always tried to point out all of his bad points, but for each bad point, there was at least one good point. It's better to focus on the positive than the negative, correct? At least, that's how I see it." Alena took a deep breath. "I just don't want our dear Toris to go through anymore hardship. While I know that is impossible, I still wish there were something I could do for him."

Feliks could hear the pain and regret in her voice as she spoke. "Alena, you really are doing your best right now, and that should count for something. It's okay if I handle things for awhile. I will gladly do that. We can't have you getting sick from stress as well, can we? You're like a beacon of hope for Toris, and I would hate for you to crumble so easily. Let me handle him for now. I know you'll come see him when you can. After all, he is our dear Toris, is he not?"

Her voice seemed to be smiling as she replied with, "Thanks, Feliks."

.

The next few days seemed to drag on, but Feliks held true to his word. He encouraged Toris to eat each day, which the brunet did, and he even lulled the other to sleep at night. It made him feel almost motherly and awkward, but he did what he felt needed to be done.

"Feliks," Toris yawned one night as he laid his head in his cell mate's lap, "why are you doing all of this for me? You're stressed out too, aren't you?"

"Not really," the blond replied, playing with the other's hair. "Besides, as your boyfriend, isn't this what I'm supposed to do? Aren't I supposed to love and care for you in your times of need?"

Toris blushed a bright red. "When you put it like that, it sounds embarrassing," he quickly stated. "You've just been so kind to me lately, and I'm nervous about that. What if you just suddenly stop all of this and turn on me like everyone else in my life has? At this moment, you're all I really have. I don't want you to leave me without a reason just like everyone else has. If that were to happen, it might just kill me."

"Why are you saying these things?" Feliks asked, wrapping strands of Toris's hair around his fingers. "Do you really think I'll leave you just like that? It would be too easy. You're going to have to try a lot harder than that to get rid of me, you know."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right," the other replied. "It's just been so difficult lately. I'm honestly starting to lose hope. This entire situation I'm in has really become hopeless, hasn't it? Only one good thing has ever come out of it."

"Oh really? And what's that?"

"You." Toris's answer was so pure and simple that even he blushed after saying it. "You're the only good thing in my life this past year. Every day, you seem to put my comfort before yours, and you worked so hard to help me adjust here. If it wasn't for you, I don't think I would've lasted this long. You're always there for me, and you pick me up every time I fall down. I don't know what I'd do without you. It's as if you were my Prison Savior, you know?"

"Yeah," Feliks softly agreed. "I guess you could say that." He smiled to himself. "Was what I did for you really all that special, though? I was just doing what I would have wanted someone to do for me."

"Of course it was special," Toris replied, speaking as if what Feliks had just said were the dumbest thing he had ever heard. "You went out of your way to make me feel welcome, and as if I finally belonged somewhere." He blushed once more as he smiled. "It's not wonder that I fell in love with you."

The blond felt his ears grow hot at such honest words. "What was that?"

His cell mate smiled and turned his head to look up at him. He slowly rose just enough to touch his lips to the other's. Toris then smiled at the blushing Feliks. "It's no wonder that I fell in love with you."


	10. Chapter 10

November 11, 2014, Iowa City, Iowa

Amelie Bonnfoy sighed as she put her wallet back into her purse. She pushed her long, blonde braid over her shoulder and adjusted her glasses. Her hand went to the small baby bump on her lower abdomen as she fought back a wave of nausea. All she wanted was to go home and rest. Ever since she had discovered she was pregnant, her life had become much too hectic to bear without at least three naps a day.

She glared impatiently at the grocery store cashier before her. It felt like he would never figure out how to print the receipt, even though she had insisted that she didn't need one. Her patience was running thin as he tapped away at the register. She didn't have time for this.

Once it was printed, she snatched the receipt from the man before her and shoved it into her shopping bag. With a scowl, she marched off toward the door, accidentally bumping into a man going the other way on her way out.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going," she apologized. She looked up and saw a tall man with long, brown hair and green eyes. Insulted that he completely ignored her and kept walking infuriated her.

After a moment, she turned around to yell at him just in time to hear the loud blast of a gunshot. Her eyes searched wildly for the gunman. She was frozen in place. Amelie couldn't even think clearly, completely lost in the chaos that instantly surrounded her.

People were screaming from every direction, trying to run to safety. Parents were shielding their children with their own bodies. Though Amelie knew she had to run, she felt as if her feet were cemented to the floor. The only thing she could do was watch everything go down. All noise faded out and all she could see was people falling all around the store.

Move, you idiot! Do you want to die?! She squeezed her eyes shut, opening the back up once she heard the gunshots growing louder. Her blue eyes instantly focused on the man she had bumped into, gun in hand. Amelie watched him pull the trigger as the cashier from before fell to the ground, his chest stained a deep scarlet.

She quickly pulled her phone out of her purse, no longer paralyzed. In seconds, she snapped a picture of the man and bolted from the store, running toward a car in the parking lot that was pulling out of a place. Her fists pounded on the passenger's side window as she screamed, "Please let me in! I'm pregnant! There's a man with a gun! We need to get out of here!"

The driver of the car let her in and drove her to safety, pulling her phone from her pocket and calling the police to report what had happened. Yet when the driver looked over at the pregnant girl in the front seat, she noticed that the blonde was unconscious. She quickly drove the girl to the hospital, knowing that since she had witnessed a mass murder, the stress could be fatal to the small life inside of her.

March 4, 2015, Fort Madison, Iowa

Toris couldn't believe it. There was no way. He couldn't have killed all of those people. The court had found him guilty, but he couldn't accept it. He would never harm another person.

His thoughts went dark. How did that picture of him come to be anyway? Though it was blurry as hell, there was no doubt that it was him in it. How could that high school girl have taken a picture amid such chaos? And how could he have wound up in it? Was he really in such intense denial? Then again, if he had killed all of those people, surely he would have remembered it, right?

He pulled at his hair in frustration. Why couldn't he remember anything about that? The picture obviously hadn't been doctored or anything, but he still couldn't believe any of it. Toris just couldn't bring himself to accept that he had done something so horrific. It was unheard of. He wanted to remain in denial until he was proven innocent.

Everything hurt; his head, his chest, his spirit. He couldn't have killed all of those people! There was no way! His mind was a mess as he tried to think of a way that he could prove his innocence, but there was nothing. Nothing could ever take away the verdict after proof had been shown. Nothing made sense anymore. Would anything ever be okay again?

"Toris?" Feliks asked, entering their cell. "Hey, how are you holding up?" His voice was tinged with concern, but his cellmate refused to look up. The blond kneeled before Toris's bunk. "That must have been a devastating shock. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"My life is over," the other inmate muttered. "I'll never be able to face my friends and family again. They probably think I'm some horrific monster by now. No one will ever care about me again. I've lost everything."

Feliks had had enough of his self-loathing talk. He had been like that since his trial two days previous, and the blond was sick of it. It was one thing to insist upon his innocence, but now that he had been proven guilty it was time for him to stop obsessing. There was no way he could change the past or the facts.

"Shut the fuck up, Toris!" he snapped, smacking Toris across the face. "Get over yourself. Literally nothing has changed since when you got here. All there is now is just solid proof that it was you."

Toris was burning with rage. "How can you say something like that?!" he shouted, hands moving on their own and gripping around the other's neck. "You don't know what's going on in my head! You don't know how I feel! We are two completely different people, and there's no way our thinking is even similar! You're a cold-blooded murderer!"

"In case you haven't realized it," Feliks struggled to say through his cellmate's tightening grip, "I've only killed one person! You killed twenty-six!" His vision began to darken. "Maybe I'm the fucked up one," he choked out. "After all, I actually loved someone like you."

Feeling the blond go limp in his grip, Toris slowly let go. After breathing heavily for a moment, the brunet suddenly realized the severity of what he had done. He felt hot tears of shame roll down his cheeks as he held his roommate in his arms. His heart felt as if it were breaking in two. Toris's fingers quickly checked for a pulse, and he was relieved to find a faint one.

"I really am a murderer," he whispered to himself. "All I do is hurt others. It's best that I'm not around anymore, isn't it?" His eyes filled with tears as he looked down at his unconscious lover. "Feliks, I'm sorry for hurting you. Don't worry, though. You won't have to worry about me anymore." Toris pressed his lips to Feliks's forehead. "Maybe it was a mistake for you to love someone like me."

Toris found himself in an empty space. There was nothing around him, not even walls, ceilings, or a floor. He felt he was just floating around in emptiness. Was there anything other than him here? He began to desperately look around, trying to find one thing to cling to before he became nothing as well.

A bright began to shine in the distance, and he ran toward it, desperate for something to prove to him that his very existence hadn't been a lie. He reached out toward it, trying to grasp his last shred of humanity in his hands. If he were to let it slip away now, then he was certain he would never feel like a person again.

As he reached the light, he could see that it was actually something being projected before him. Getting a closer look at it, he saw that it was his life, but only certain parts of it. Straining his eyes to get a better look, he was horrified at what he saw.

The him in every snippet of his life he saw was violent and terrifying. All that version of himself did was hurt people. What was going on? Was this who he really was? Was this how everyone saw him? He saw himself beating up Alfred as a child, choking out the boy at school who made fun of him, and even himself holding a gun and taking the lives of countless people in a grocery store. His eyes welled with tears when he saw himself attacking Feliks, who was just trying to be supportive of him.

He reached out to the Feliks in the snippet and was suddenly cast into the vague emptiness once more. "What have I done?" he whispered to himself. "Who am I? What am I?" Toris looked down at his hands and felt disgusted. Though they were clean, he still felt as if they were stained with blood.

"Who would you be if not Toris?" a soft voice behind him asked. He turned quickly to see Alena standing behind him. "Seems like you've been having a rough time, huh? It's hard to look back at the hurtful things you've done to others once there's nothing left for you, isn't it?" She frowned and then smiled sadly at him. "We all loved you, Toris. Sure, we knew you did some undesirable things at times, but we all still chose to care about you. It was our choice to support you and let you know how much you meant to us." Her eyes began to overflow with tears. "So why?" she weakly asked. "Why did you do this to us?!"

"Do what?" he asked Alena, who was slowly beginning to fade away. "What did I do, Len?" Toris tried to reach out and grab her to keep her with him, but his hand went right through her now-rapidly fading body. "Please, Alena! What are you talking about?! I don't understand!"

Left alone in the vast emptiness once more, Toris began to feel terribly frightened as he looked around himself. He was searching for someone, anyone. It didn't matter who it was as long as he wasn't alone anymore.

A soft sniffling could be heard behind him, and he spun around to see his mother crying. She looked just as she had both times the verdicts had been read. Her shoulders shook with sobs, making her look as if she would topple over at any moment. "Why?" she whimpered. "Why did this have to happen?"

"Mom?" Toris asked, reaching out to her. "Mom, it's me. What's going on? Why are you crying?"

"You were always so vibrant and full of life," Justina Laurinaitis said, tears gushing from her eyes. "Why did you have to go and do this to us? I hate being alone all the time. The house is so empty without you here. My heart is forever broken. All I want is to have my little boy back! Is that too much to ask?! Bring back my son!"

"But Mom, I'm right here!" he called to her. "Please listen to me! I'm right here!"

"How could you do this to me?!" she wailed as she, too, faded away. "How could you leave me like this?! Why did it have to be my son?!"

Toris pressed his hands over his ears, trying to drown out his mother's sobbing. It was clear that she was sobbing over him and the things he had done. If he were in her position, he would be sobbing as well. He felt ashamed that he had done such a horrible thing to his own mother. How could he have been such a horrible son and never once realized how much pain he had put her through? His body felt weighed down by his shame. Why couldn't he have just been a better son to his mother and never had to make her worry or cry? This was what he deserved; being alone in this emptiness.

"Oh, my God," a familiar voice groaned. "You can not be thinking what I think you're thinking." Feliks was rolling his eyes in annoyance when Toris turned to face him. The thing that set him apart from the other two was that he was looking directly at the brunet. "Your self-loathing really will be your downfall, I swear. Why can't you just accept the things that you've done, intentional or not, and move on? You can never become a better person if you're too focused on your mistakes, now can you?" He reached a hand out to Toris. "I can't believe I fell in love with such a pessimist."

Toris grasped Feliks's hand tightly. "Feliks! Oh, my God! You're okay!" He pulled the blond into him and hugged him tightly. "Where the hell are we? This place is terrifying!"

"Your conscience, maybe?" the other man guessed. "You have to get out of here, Toris. Please come back to us. Things are kinda weird without you, you know? I don't like it. It's unsettling and makes me anxious."

"How did I even get here? What's going on?" Toris asked, panicked. "I don't remember how I got here at all. How do I get back to everyone? Or at least get to a place where people can talk to me and not fade away directly after? I'm scared, Feliks!"

"Geez, you're such a pain," Feliks sighed. He smiled at his cellmate. "Can't you figure out all of these things out for yourself? Why are you so troublesome?" The blond rolled his green eyes, exasperated. His gaze suddenly went to his hands. They were becoming transparent. "Listen, Toris, you need to come back to us, okay? We'll all be waiting for you."

"Come back?" the brunet asked. "But how?! I don't even know how I got here!"

His cellmate's hand reached out to him. "Come on, Toris, let's go. Everyone's waiting for you."

Toris grasped Feliks's hand tightly. "Go where?" he asked. "What is even going on?"

A blinding light overwhelmed his field of field of vision. He could feel himself becoming cold, but at the same time he was warm. What was this feeling? Where was he going? He could no longer feel the blond's grip, but he could tell he was moving somewhere, even if he couldn't figure out where. All he could hope was that it was somewhere with everyone else.

A soft beeping was the first thing Toris heard before he opened his eyes to see a white ceiling above him. He slowly glanced around him. Everything was white, including the sheets on his bed. It wasn't until a few moments later that he realized he was in a hospital of some sort. What the hell had happened to him? What happened to Feliks and their cell?

A nurse walked in to check on him and noticed that his eyes were open. "Toris?" she softly asked. "Can you hear me? I'm going to get the doctor, okay?"

Unable to reply, Toris watched her rush out of the room. Where was he? Why was he in a place like this? What had happened to him? His head swam with many questions, all which he had no answer to. Hopefully, everything would make sense soon.

Dr. Adnan walked into the room and smiled down at Toris. "I see you're finally awake," he said. "That was quite some stunt you pulled, let me tell you." He examined his patient's expression. "You don't remember what happened? Your face tells me that you have no idea what you're doing in a hospital. A quick look at your forearms will tell you all that you need to know."

Daring to glance downward, Toris could see that his arms were bandaged up with a little bit of blood leaking through. He felt sick. Though he could pretty much picture what he had done and knew that it was self-inflicted, he could barely believe it.

"You lost a lot of blood, Toris," the doctor sighed. "The doctors here didn't know if you were going to make it or not. To be fair, you nearly flatlined twice. You really held on, though." He whistled low, impressed. "I'll tell you one thing, you had your friends and family worried sick. When you get out of here, you had better give them a proper apology, you hear?"

"Loud and clear," Toris weakly assured. Was that emptiness where he had been the space between life and death? How long had he been there? "Dr. Adnan, how long have I been unconscious?"

"Let's see here," Dr. Adnan said, thinking. "They found you and your cellmate at about five PM, so I'd say you've been out for about three days."

"Wait," the brunet said. "What do you mean by 'found'?" His heart rate rose in panic, sending the machine next to him on a beeping frenzy. "What happened to Feliks? Is he okay?" He wouldn't have been able to bear it if something were to happen to his lover.

"You nearly crushed his windpipe," Adnan sighed, looking dismayed. His expression instantly changed to a happier one. "Feliks is perfectly fine. He was pretty shaken up, especially after finding out what had happened to you. Let me tell you, Toris, you have a lot of apologizing to do when you get out of here. You know that, right?"

"Good thing I'll have the rest of my life to atone for it, right?" Toris joked, relieved that Feliks was still alive. "He's really gonna kick my ass when I get back." He laughed bitterly, smile becoming a cringe. "If I even get to go back."

"You will," the doctor assured. "After all, I'm pretty sure almost dying is punishment enough for attacking your cellmate. Just so you know, if you attack him again, your ass is getting transferred. Understand?" He laughed. "The warden was pretty pissed off about it all, though. He might give you some shit for awhile, but just ignore him. He's always looking for something to be angry about."

The patient let out an uncomfortable laugh. "I'll keep that in mind." His mind then went to his memories of the emptiness before regaining consciousness. "How's my mom? I can only imagine how awful this whole ordeal would've been for her." He frowned. "She must've cried a lot."

"She came to see you every day," the other man said. "We sent her to the nearest hotel to rest up, but she should be coming to see you again soon. You really scared her, Toris. Don't pull stupid shit like this again."

"Understood," the brunet agreed. His mind then went to the empty space once more. He hated how his mother and Alena had cried, especially over someone like him. It was then that he realized how fortunate he really was to have people who cared about him enough to cry and get mad over things like this. He really was one lucky guy.

March 10, 2015, Fort Madison, Iowa

Toris stepped out of the police car and back onto the prison grounds. He had spent the past few days accepting the fact that this place was his new home. Nothing was ever going to change that, so he might as well make the best of it. After all, it wasn't like he really was alone.

He was led to the warden's office to check in. This was the part he was dreading. The warden was always a dick to everyone, and he knew that today would not be an exception to that. If anything, he would be more angry than normal since he didn't get his way in regards to transferring Toris.

"Welcome back," Vash Zwingli gruffly stated, glaring daggers at the inmate across his desk from him. "Let me make one thing perfectly clear. The next time you pull that kind of shit, you're gone. Do you understand that? Dr. Adnan will not be jumping in to save you a second time. You will be gone before your stupid brain could even begin to comprehend what had happened in the first place, got it?"

"Yeah, I got it," Toris said, smiling from relief. He made a mental note to thank Dr. Adnan profusely during his next appointment. After all, if he hadn't stuck his neck out like that, Toris would never be able to see Feliks ever again. And the thought of that was unbearable.

"What the fuck are you smiling about?" Vash snarled across the desk at him. "Do you not realize the severity of your actions? You're in the doghouse now. One misstep, and you're gone. What about that makes you smile like that?"

"That's not what I'm smiling about," the inmate replied, resisting the urge to laugh. What was wrong with him? Usually, he trembled in fear before the warden, but now he was here on the verge of laughter. Why wasn't he scared of him?

"Then what the fuck are you smiling about?"

"I'm just so glad to be back," Toris cheered.

Vash groaned loudly. "I don't even want to look at you right now," he replied, an irritated edge to his voice. He looked up to the guards that were escorting Toris. "Get this stupid motherfucker out of my office," he commanded. "I can't even stand being in the same room as him at the moment." He fixed an emerald green glare on the inmate. "Don't let me see you in here ever again, understand?"

"Got it!" Toris replied with a nod. He was quickly escorted from the office, but not before hearing something get thrown against the wall. At least it was thrown at a wall, and not him.

Once in his cell, Toris saw Feliks sitting on his bunk, waiting for him. He rushed to the blond and hugged him tightly, wishing he would never have to let go. His emotions and feelings came pouring out of him as he felt his cellmate embrace him back.

"Not too tight," Feliks said, voice hoarse. He managed to break away from Toris. "Got anything you need to say to me?"

"You were right, and I was wrong," Toris began, the words pouring from his heart like a broken dam. "I did kill all of those people. I killed them, I hurt Alfred, and worst of all, I hurt you. I'm sorry for what I did, and I know that sorry will never be able to fix any of it." He stopped to catch his breath. "Was there anything I missed?"

"You tell me," the blond replied with a mischievous grin.

Toris grasped the other's hands tightly in his. He gazed into Feliks's eyes. "After accepting what I've done, I do, in fact, have one more thing to say to you." His mouth formed into a smile. "I'm home."

"Yes," Feliks replied before leaning in to give Toris a peck on the lips. "You are. Welcome home."

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated with love to my dear friend Chase, and all others whom the Iowa Mental Health System failed. You are all still loved.


End file.
